The Encounter Read online

  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.

  CHAPTER 26

  They 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.

  CHAPTER 27

  The 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.”

 

  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.

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  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 th
e 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.”

  Rachel’s eyes flared the way they do when someone tells her something she doesn’t want to hear. “I’m calling nine-one-one,” she said tersely.

  “No, Rachel, I’m okay,” I said. I sat up. My head felt a little woozy, but I was all right.

  Rachel hesitated, her fingers just above the keypad. “What about Tobias?”

  I looked around the room and saw Tobias spread out on the floor, one wing crumpled beneath him.

  He looked dead.

  I jumped up and ran to him.

  “Rachel, Cassie seems okay, and nine-one-one can’t help Tobias,” Jake said.

  Rachel replaced the receiver and ran over to Tobias.

  “He’s not dead,” I said. I could feel him breathing. Then, just as suddenly as I had, he woke up. His enormous brown hawk’s eyes opened, instantly fierce.

  His first reaction was pure hawk. He hopped up and flared. Hawks flare just the way cats do when they’re trying to intimidate someone. They hunch their shoulders and fluff up their feathers to make themselves look bigger than they are.

  “Everybody stand still,” I said quickly. “It’s okay, Tobias, you were just out for a minute there.”

  He quickly gained control over the hawk instincts. he said.

  “It happened to me, too,” I said. “I passed out. And then I had the dream again. Only this time I could hear an actual voice. Or at least I heard thought-speech.”

  Tobias confirmed.

  “Okay, now this is getting weird,” Rachel said. “Because at the same time I thought I kind of felt something.”

  “Yeah,” Jake agreed. Marco nodded.

 

  “Only this someone is in the water, or under the water, or something,” I said. “Seeing that video, seeing that writing, it was like suddenly the message grew stronger.”

  “Or it may have just been a coincidence,” Jake said. “This isn’t a dream. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t a dream. Even I halfway saw something. This is some kind of a communication.”

  “Well, this is all very interesting,” Marco said, “but so what? I mean, are we getting some kind of psychic message from the Little Mermaid? What are we supposed to do about it?”

  Jake looked closely at me. “Cassie? Was the voice in your dream a human voice?”

  I was startled by the question. I hadn’t really thought about it. I actually laughed. “When you asked me, the first thing that popped into my head was no, it isn’t human.” I laughed again. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Tobias said suddenly.

  “So what is it?” Rachel asked. “Yeerk?”

  I let my mind drift back to the dream. I tried to hear the sound in my head again. “No, not Yeerk. It reminds me of something … of someone.”

  Tobias blurted.

  I snapped my fingers. “Yes! That’s it! It reminds me of the Andalite. When he first thought-spoke to us. That’s what it’s like.”

  “The Andalite,” Marco muttered. He looked away. I knew he was remembering. We all were.

  We had been walking home from the mall at night. Walking through a big abandoned construction site, when the Andalite ship had appeared above us.

  It landed, and out came the Andalite prince, fatally wounded in a battle with the Yeerks somewhere in space.

  He was the one who had warned us of the Yeerks — the parasite species that inhabits the brains of other creatures and enslaves them, making them Controllers. It was the Andalite who had warned us, and who, in desperation, had given us the great and terrible weapon—the power to morph.

  We had been hiding, cringing in terror, when the Yeerks caught up with the Andalite. When Visser Three himself, the Yeerk leader, had murdered him.

  I shuddered at the terrible memory of the Andalite’s last, despairing cry.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Tobias is right. It’s an Andalite. That’s who is calling to us from the sea. An Andalite.”

  For a few minutes no one said anything.

  Then Rachel said, “He died trying to save us.” She looked defiantly at Marco. “I know that doesn’t mean anything to you. But the Andalite died trying to save Earth.”

  Marco nodded. “I know. And you’re wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me.”

  “Yeah? Well, if there’s some Andalite calling for help, I’m going to try and help him,” Rachel said.

  I looked over at Jake and we shared this look, like “Oh, big surprise, Rachel is ready to go.” I hid my smile and Jake kept a straight face.

  “Tobias?” Jake asked. “What do you say?”

 

  Of all of us, it was Tobias who had stayed longest at the Andalite’s side, even as the Andalite ordered him to get to safety. Something really deep had gone on between the Andalite prince and Tobias.

  It was my turn. “I can’t just ignore someone crying out for help, if that’s what this is.”

  We all looked at Marco. I could see Rachel getting angry, like she was ready to jump all over Marco if, as usual, he disagreed.

  Marco just grinned. “I really hate to do this. I really hate to disappoint you all.” Then he grew serious. “But I was there at the construction site, same as all of you. I was there when Visser Three —” Suddenly his voice choked. “What I mean is, if there’s an Andalite who needs anything, I’m there.”

  You do realize that if we’re down here at the beach because of that news story, some Controllers are probably down here, too?” Marco asked for about the tenth time.

  “Yes, Marco,” Jake said patiently. “But maybe Cassie and Tobias can get some feeling from being down here, closer to the sea.”

  “So let me get this straight—we are now making decisions based on Tobias and Cassie’s dreams, right?” Marco said. “And yet my dreams are totally ignored. The fact that I once dreamed about staying home and watching TV in total safety, that means nothing, right?”

  “Right,” Jake said flatly.

  We were at the beach. The same beach where the guy on the news had found what we now believed was a piece of an Andalite ship. It was night, with a sliver of moon that painted ripples of silver across the black water. A salt breeze blew off the water, making me feel peaceful and yet a little overwhelmed, intimidated, the way the ocean always makes me feel.

  There is nothing as big as the ocean. It’s like this entirely different planet, full of strange plants and fantastic animals. Valleys and mountains and caves and broad, flat plains, all hidden from our sight.

  All I could see was the surface. All I could feel was the barest edge of the ocean, rushing over my toes as each wave crashed ashore.

  But I could sense it out there. I could sense how vast it was, and how tiny I was.

  “How about my dream of living long enough to get a driver’s license?”

  Jake gave Marco an exasperated look. “Marco, you can turn into a bird and fly. You could do it right now. Why would you care about driving a car a few years from now?”

  “The babes,” Marco said instantly. “Duh. You can’t pick up girls when you’re a bird.” He glanced overhead, where we could see just the hint of dark wings against the canopy of stars. “No offense, Tobias. The wings are great, but I’m thinking of something bright red with about four hundred horsepower.”

  Marco’s cooperative mood hadn’t lasted long. I knew it w
ouldn’t. Marco is never happy unless he’s complaining about something. Just like Rachel is never happy unless she has something to fight against. And Tobias is never happy, period. He thinks if he’s ever happy, someone will just come along and take his happiness away.

  “So, Cassie?” Rachel said. “Do you feel anything?”

  “Well, I feel a little embarrassed,” I admitted. “And a little foolish.”

  “Maybe we could try calling a psychic hotline,” Marco suggested. “Hi, is this Madame Zora? I’ve been dreaming about aliens lately—”

  “Why Cassie and Tobias?” Rachel wondered aloud, ignoring Marco. “Why would they get these images so clearly and the rest of us barely felt anything?”

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, okay, say you’re an Andalite. And you want to call for help. Who do you want to come and rescue you? Other Andalites, obviously.”

  “Tobias isn’t an Andalite, and neither am I,” I pointed out.

  “I know,” Jake said. “But maybe this communication, whatever it is, is tied into the ability to morph. You know, like morphing ability makes you able to ‘hear’ it. That way, only Andalites would be able to receive the call for help.”

  “Which still doesn’t explain why Tobias and I —”

  “Maybe it does,” Marco interrupted, serious again. “Look, Tobias is permanently in morph. And Cassie, you’re the one who has the most talent for morphing.” Then he flashed white teeth in the dark. “Besides, you know you like animals more than humans, so it’s like you’re halfway into morph, anyway.”

  Suddenly a dark shape swooped low over our heads. Tobias said.