Chapter Two

There he was, before me again. Biological, mechanical, or some strange mixture of the two. Or something completely different altogether. Nobody could tell.

The creature with the one large blood red eye. The eye that seemed to follow your every movement, going everywhere all at the same time.

I waited for the eye to lock onto me, like so many times before. I was having this dream almost every week now, and even more so since we left Earth. Every time, the eye would look straight at me, and Crayak would utter a single word. A word that has haunted my subconscious for what would seem like an eternity by now.

"Soon."

I knew it was coming. I was no longer hoping that he wouldn't find me, as it was clearly inevitable. But, I still shuddered as I saw that bloated thing finally come around to stare straight at me.

And, he uttered a single word, once again. But, to my utter amazement, and to my utter horror, it was unlike any time before.

"Now." The blood red eye, although he had no form of mouth, was smiling inwardly. "The time has come, Jake," he said, in his unavoidable voice. "The time for the game to end. Time for you to die."

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I opened my eyes.

It all came back to me, slowly at first, but then in greater detail. The Blade Ship. Prince Aximili. The alien who had called himself the One. And finally, the impact, and the outline of the purple planet, coming closer and closer.

I slowly looked around at my surroundings, trying to get an idea at what had happened. I was no longer on board the Rachel, that was for sure. Odd, violet coloured tree trunks towered around me. They branched out like Earth trees, but revealed long blue-coloured leaves, blocking most of the sky above me, with a canopy that had to be a mile high. There were spots where I could see the light yellowish sky, though-probably a result of the crash, I expected. There were several broken tree branches scattered around the vicinity.

I moved my leg, and felt immense pain. I did the same with my arm, and got the same effect. However, I managed to get up, fighting the pain. I needed a good idea of where I ended up, and where the others were.

I took a deep breath, getting some fresh air into my lungs. Immediately after, I began choking. The air tasted like vinegar! I had no idea what gases would create that effect on this strange planet, and I could only hope it wasn't harmful. At the moment, it was breathable, and that was all that mattered.

It was all my fault. If we had set up the precautions, we could have escaped the Blade Ship's gravity. Even with that thing, the being who called himself the One, we could have high-tailed it out of there before any fighting began. But no, I went offensive, possibly getting my team killed in the process. And now, we were stuck on an odd, purple planet with air that tastes like vinegar, in what was probably the most unexplored region of the galaxy.

But I had to stop blaming myself. What was done was done, no reversing that. What was yet to come was what I was in control of. I began walking, crunching some of the purple tree-branches along the way. They looked as hard as the trees back home, but to my amazement, they were surprisingly brittle. One step, and the branch cracked in half, as shards of dust sprinkled along the soggy ground.

Jake, is that you who made that noise?

I froze. "Tobias?" I questioned.

No, it's Jeanne, she said. We were looking for you, Jake. Weren't sure if you made it out alive.

"Where are you, Jeanne?" I asked, scanning the trees for any creatures I could recognize.

Look up, she told me. Above the trees.

I did, scanning the patches where the canopy had been rattled. And there, illuminated by the planet's sun, was a creature that looked completely out of place in this alien forest.

A great-horned owl.

As I watched, Jeanne lowered swiftly to the ground, not making a single sound. It was what made the species so dangerous to their prey: their feathers were so soft that it is nearly impossible to notice them until it's too late.

Jeanne flapped her wings, coming in for a landing. I watched as she landed right on top of a nearby rock, with precision that would have made an Air-Force pilot envious.

"Hello, Jeanne," I said to the owl. "Are the others all right?"

The others are all fine, Jeanne told me. Menderash and I managed to stay in the ship for the duration of the crash, but the rest of you were scattered around this forest. We found Tobias almost immediately, and have been searching for the others ever since. And, now that I've found you, I can say that we all made it.

"That's great," I said, disbelievingly. We had just survived that crash landing, all of us. I would have been overjoyed, if not for the so many complications that we now had. "Any idea where we are?"

Kelbrid space, she told me. Other than that, I haven't the slightest idea.

"How far is the ship?" I asked, already beginning my falcon morph.

Not too far away, she told me. We can walk there. I'm been in morph for ninety minutes, anyway.

I reverted back to human, and watched as Jeanne demorphed. He talons were the first to change, reforming themselves into fleshy human toes. The skinny bird legs then sprouted upwards, until they were almost two and a half feet tall, with the rest of Jeanne still looking completely owl.

As I watched, the bird's eyes shrunk in size, replacing themselves with Jeanne's smaller, brown-coloured eyes. As that happened, her beak reformed, softening into her own lips.

The wings had disappeared, replaced with strong human arms. The feathers were quickly retracting themselves, except for the ones on her head, which were breaking up, forming her long, black hair.

Once she was fully human, she began leading me in the direction of the ship.

"So, have you found any signs of a local intelligent species around here?" I asked her.

"None yet, Professor," she told me. "But I've haven't been looking that long, though."

Suddenly, something else occurred to me. "What about the Blade Ship?"

Jeanne remained silent for awhile. Finally, she said, "Menderash was awake the whole time during the collision. He says he saw the Blade Ship headed for the planet too, supposedly in a crash landing as well. Apparently, they didn't land too far away. My best guess is about three hundred kilometres due west."

"Then we better be on the lookout, then," I told her. I then looked up at the deep yellow sky, which only emphasized the fact that we were light-years from home. And now, I was beginning to realize that it wasn't that different.

The Yeerks were still among us, waiting to strike.