Kicking her tail, Shara circled restlessly. Not just for the fact that she couldnt stop moving without risking suffocation; she was worried for Marco. The last shed heard of him, hed confronted his mother in front of Rachel, Ax, and her own brother; that couldnt have been good for him, he was too much like Cain to want people to know about his personal problems.

No matter what kind of help they could offer.

(Here they come!)

She almost asked Cassie to repeat that; but when she turned to look out into the water, she saw them: the enhanced Hammerheads were back. There were six of them, this time, so at least the odds were on their side, but Shara didnt think she could risk transforming at this depth. She would need to return to her human form before she could, and doing so at this depth well, that would probably cause more problems than it solved, in the end.

For all that the sharks were outnumbered, they were still dangerous.

Marco, however, didnt seem to care how dangerous these sharks were; thrashing the water with his tail, he propelled himself forward into battle. Twisting himself sideways, in what she thought was a very respectable feint given the circumstances, he opened his mouth wide and delivered a crushing, slicing bite to his enemys flank.

(Yes!) he shouted, his rage and bloodlust perfectly clear, and perfectly understandable from where she stood. (Yes! Come and get some more, you monsters!)

(Marco, stop it!) Jake demanded; she sighed inwardly, it looked like she was the only one who understood him. (Shara, come help me.)

(Jake, I dont think that you-)

(Now really isnt the time, Shara,) he said, darting out into the fray and slamming into Marcos side hard enough to knock him off his previous course.

XXX

When the other shark slammed into him, knocking him sideways while his opponent made good his escape, Marco turned toward the other shark. One Hammerhead was as good as another, as far as he was concerned.

(Its me, Marco,) Jake said; he stopped. (Its me. Theyre leaving; theyve all broken off. Theyve lost the signal from the facility, and theyre all escaping.) Mad as he was, he wasnt going to take it out on Jake; not yet, anyway. (Its over now, Marco. Lets get out of here.)

The last of the bloodlust was gone; fading in the wake of his human rationality and pragmatism. The last of the Yeerk-engineered sharks were evacuating, to maybe be found someday or not, and the facility was done for. The last of the contained atmosphere was escaping; huge bubbles of it roiling the sea in its wake as explosions rocked the seabed.

The hologram vanished entirely, as the eight of them put everything they had into escaping from the horror theyd unleashed at the Yeerks underwater shark-Controller factory. As he caught a glimpse of Visser Threes water-snake morph from planet Whatever slithering away through the sea, he felt an odd, not-entirely-unpleasant sensation in his head.

The control implants were dissolving, just the way Ax had said they would when the facilitys computer had decided that there was no way to save the project. The Yeerks were good at destroying evidence, he reflected; the chips in all of the altered Hammerheads were gone now. No fisherman, no marine biologist, would ever catch a shark that had alien technology implanted in its head.

(Were done here,) Cassie said, sounding relieved at the prospect.

(Yeah. And, we can at least hope that Visser One didnt manage to slime her way out,) Tobias said, with a definite edge to his thought-speak voice. (Id like to think shes still down there somewhere, trying to figure out how to hold her breath under all that water.)

It was just the kind of thing that he would have said, under any other circumstances.

But they knew now; Rachel, Jake and Ax, and Shara and Slade. Shara wouldnt tell anyone who didnt already know, shed as good as told him so herself; but that didnt hold for Jake, or Rachel. Rachel would tell Cassie, if Jake didnt first, and pretty soon the whole group would know about it.

They would know what he had tried to keep from them for so long; and he knew that he couldnt count on the same discreet, gentle sympathy from the others that he got from Shara. They would pity him, and he would hate it. Cassie in particular; the only one he didnt have to expect that kind of thing from was Slade, and that wasnt nearly comforting enough in the face of what he was going to have to deal with from now on.

They would all go back to their normal lives, well, some of them would, but nothing would ever really be the same again. All of the others would know what he what he went through, every time he was forced to confront one of Visser Ones plans, knowing that she herself would be there to oversee them. They would know that his heart was breaking with every day the two of them were separated.

They would know everything, and they would pity him for it all. He felt a profound sense of defeat settle over him, waiting for someone, anyone, to say something comforting. Something that they never would have said to him if they hadnt known what they knew now.

(Hey, I just heard something,) Rachel said; not anything like what hed been expecting. (Mechanical. Like hey! Its the same sound that sub made. The transparent sub. I heard its engines.)

(I dont hear anything,) Tobias said, sounding like he didnt quite believe it.

(I dont think you would,) Shara said. (Its coming from more over this way, closer to Rachel and me.)

He hadnt heard anything, either; and while Shara wasnt the type to indulge him for the sake of pity, he didnt know entirely what Rachel would do. There was a lot more to Rachel than met the eye, these days; maybe there always had been. No one could ever predict just what shed do, at least he couldnt.

(Thanks, Xena,) he said; one last test.

(Thanks? For what?) Rachel sneered; passed. (For hearing that sub? For paying more attention than you, Marco? You know, possibly the reason I notice more than you do, Marco, is the fact that I dont use half my brain making dumb jokes and the other half laughing at them.)

He had to chuckle at that one; point to Rachel, he supposed. It was a good shot, and he didnt mine the ones that were at his expense, just so long as they were funny.