The Encounter (11 page)

T
ake off! Move!< Visser Three commanded the crew of the truck ship.

Almost immediately, the huge thing began to move forward. Very slowly at first. But as it moved, it created a headwind. The bridge was moving away from me. The ship was rising as it went. A hundred feet up now. Two hundred!

Right then I had a powerful urge to shock the evil monster and say,

But I wasn’t ready to start bragging. The truth
was, it was looking bad. The ship was slowly picking up speed.

I flapped harder, harder. I gained again. But it was painfully slow. I was wearing out. The Dracon beam weighed me down. The headwind was building.

Ahead of me, just a few feet away, I saw the bulge of the bridge.

I gained a foot. Another. Another.

I landed and folded my wings. I couldn’t fly anymore. But I could still pull myself along with my talons, gripping the small edges and ridges that ran along the top of the ship’s bridge.

I was there! Below me, transparent plastic. I could see the crew on the bridge. Taxxons stared wildly up at me.

With one desperate lunge I propelled myself into the air. I had to fly full force to stay ahead of the onrushing windows of the bridge.

Then, with one sharp talon, I pulled the trigger on the Dracon beam.

There was no recoil. Not like a regular gun at all.

But a beam of intense red light lanced from me to the bridge. It burned a hole through the window, sliced through a fat Taxxon, and began slicing up control panels and instruments like a hot knife going
through butter. I squeezed that trigger for as long as I could.

At last, exhausted, I could do no more.

The Dracon beam slipped from my talon and plunged toward the earth below.

But I had done it.

It was an incredible and terrible thing to see. The ship, big as a skyscraper, vast beyond belief, shuddered as though it had hit a speed bump.

Still it rose, sharply upward into the sky, as if it were a whale breaching. It aimed for space, its natural home. But it was clear that it was no longer under control. It rolled suddenly onto its side.

BOOM!
A ball of orange flame!

The out-of-control ship had smashed recklessly into one of the helicopters. The chopper fell in ruins.

The Bug fighters and the Blade ship scurried quickly out of the way. But too late.

KA-RUNCH! BA-BOOM!

One of the Bug fighters had slammed into the side of the ship. The Bug fighter was finished. The Blade ship and the remaining Bug fighter withdrew quickly.

And then I saw the hole.

A tear a hundred feet long had been opened in the side of the truck ship. From the hole, the water
of the lake gushed. It was a waterfall from the sky. Millions of gallons hemorrhaging out.

I whispered.

We were maybe seven hundred feet up over the forest now, when I saw them.

Cassie first. Then Rachel and Marco together. And Jake. They fell, fully human, from the torn side of the ship.

They plummeted, helpless, doomed, to the uprushing ground!

I knew there was nothing I could do. I
knew
it. But still I hurtled after them. Hurtled with all my speed to them as they fell, arms flailing, mouths open in screams of terror.

T
hey fell.

But as they fell, they began to change.

Cassie was the first. Feathers sprouted from her skin. One of her morphs was an osprey. A distant cousin of the red-tails.

She fell, and as she fell, she became less and less of a human.

Marco had previously morphed an osprey as well, and Rachel a bald eagle. Bald eagles are huge birds, much bigger than red-tailed hawks.

As I watched, long wings replaced their flailing arms.

Jake had morphed a peregrine falcon. Peregrines
are so fast they make redtails look like they are standing still.

As I watched, a peregrine’s beak grew from Jake’s mouth.

Not enough time. Not enough time! They would hit the ground before—

Shwoooop!

Cassie opened her wings and skimmed above the treetops. Rachel barely made it. She fell down into the forest, out of sight. I was sure she had been too late.

But then, up from the trees floated a bird with a six-foot wingspread and a proud white head.

I cried.

In the sky overhead, the huge truck ship stopped climbing. It rolled again, onto its back this time, and plunged back to Earth.

I heard Marco yell.

I told him.

With the truck ship out of the way and falling to Earth, the Blade ship and the Bug fighters came after us.

I yelled.

Like a well-trained fighter squadron, we swooped down into the forest. Down below the tops of the
trees, where the Yeerks could no longer see us.

BOOOOOM!

An explosion like a bomb going off. The truck ship had hit the ground.

The concussion rolled us over like a tidal wave of air.

I rocketed into a tree, but was able to avoid being hurt. I yelled.

One by one they said yes.

But the explosion had disturbed every animal in the forest. The birds had all either hidden or flown away during the earlier fighting. Those few birds still left now took wing, startled.

I saw her take off. The hawk. She was scared and wanted to run to the sky.

But the sky was not a sanctuary for her.

I don’t know which ship fired the Dracon beam. Whether it was one of the Bug fighters, or the Blade ship.

You see, they’d had a good long look at me. And she looked just like me.

The Dracon beam sizzled. It burned off a wing.

And she fell to Earth, never to fly again.

T
he Yeerk truck ship burned. What was left was eliminated by the Yeerks. No evidence was left behind. No proof that we could show to the world.

But we had destroyed it. And a Bug fighter as well. And we had gotten out alive. Most of us.

It was a day later when I went to see Rachel again. It was like she was expecting me.

“Hi, Tobias,” she said. “Come in. It’s safe.” I hopped through the window and fluttered over to the dresser.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

I said.

She looked unsure of what to say next. “Look, um, Tobias … maybe this seems crazy. But Cassie and I were thinking, you know, that maybe we’d go back up to the lake. Try and find … her body. The hawk. You know, and at least bury her.”

She looked keenly at me. “Well, we are human.
All
of us.”

“If you helped us look, maybe we could still find her body.”

“That’s the way it is for wild animals, Tobias. Not humans.”

am
a human, yes. But I am also a hawk. I’m a predator who kills for food.
And I’m also a human being who … who grieves, over death>

She looked terribly sad. She’s very human, my friend Rachel.

I went to the window. It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was bright. The cumulus clouds advertised the thermals that would carry me effortlessly to the sky.

I flew.

I am Tobias. A boy. A hawk. Some strange mix of the two.

You know now why I can’t tell you my last name. Or where I live. But someday you may look up in the sky and see the silhouette of a large bird of prey. Some large bird with a rending beak and sharp, tearing talons. Some bird with vast wings outstretched to ride the thermals.

Be happy for me, and for all who fly free.

ANIMORPHS
^™
#04

THE
MESSAGE

I
was falling, falling, falling.

Falling into the sea.

Splash! I hit the water. But still I fell. Down and down and down through blue-green, sunlit layers of water.

a voice called to me.

Suddenly I opened my eyes. I stared up at Jake’s concerned face.

Glancing across the room, I saw Rachel with the telephone to her ear, preparing to dial.

“She’s awake!” Jake said.

“I’d better still call an ambulance,” Rachel said.

“No!” Marco snapped. “Not unless we know she’s hurt. It’s too big a risk.”