Animorphs - The Invasion Part 15

The muscles in my back legs coiled up. I bared my teeth and gave them another roar loud enough to make the ground quiver.

I leaped through the air, claws outstretched.

CHAPTER 25.

I sailed through the air and struck the closest Hork-Bajir in the chest.

Down he went with me on top of him. He rolled over and tried to get up. He was fast. I was faster.

He struck at me with his razored arm. I ducked under the blow. My left paw swung, so fast even I couldn't see it. It left four oozing tracks across the Hork-Bajir's shoulder.

Another Hork-Bajir! Wrist blades, elbow blades and talons whizzed. They were like a pair of lawn mowers on full throttle.

And still I was faster. I can't even remember what happened next. All I have is this image of the tiger - of me - with claws slashing and jaws snapping. I was a whirlwind of orange fur and black stripes.

The Hork-Bajir fell back. I roared. They turned and ran.

On one side I saw Rachel. She lifted a Hork-Bajir up on her tusks and tossed him back over her shoulder like he was a doll.

And then I saw Marco. Big Jim's ma.s.sive body was ripping its way out of Marco's slight frame.

'Just call me King,' Marco said. 'King Kong.'

The truth is, like Ca.s.sie said, gorillas are very gentle, peaceful, quiet creatures. The truth also is that they are strong. Real strong.

Basically, compared to a gorilla, a man is something made out of toothpicks.

Now, Hork-Bajir are pretty large creatures. They stand about seven feet high and are built for trouble. But Marco swung one big gorilla fist and hit the nearest Hork-Bajir in the stomach. The Hork-Bajir went down. Hard.

I roared. Rachel trumpeted. Marco lifted the Hork-Bajir up and tossed him aside like a rag doll.

The rest of the Hork-Bajir turned and ran.

'Now!' I shouted. 'Before they get organized again!'

We charged. Rachel just plowed right through some of the small sheds and buildings like G.o.dzilla heading for Tokyo.

Marco came loping along, swinging his ma.s.sive forearms, punching anything that got in his way. Whatever he punched stayed down: And I ran right down the middle, looking for any Controller dumb enough to mess with me.

We reached the cages. The people and Hork-Bajir inside shrank back from us. They were almost as afraid of us as they were of the Controllers. Let's face it - a rescue party made up of an elephant, a, gorilla, and a tiger is not what they'd been hoping for.

Marco began ripping at a lock on one of the cages. The lock gave way. The door flew open. Marco did something very human to rea.s.sure them. He made a little bow, then crooked his finger at them as if to say come on out Tom was the first out. He looked scared and mad and determined. I was going to send him a thought message, telling him who I was, but suddenly there was Rachel, screaming in my head.

'Jake!' Rachel said. 'Look. Ca.s.sie!'

Ca.s.sie was nearly at the end of the infestation pier. The Hork-Bajir and Taxxon guards were still sticking to their duties. As I watched, another human was shoved headfirst into the Yeerk pool.

'Ca.s.sie is next!' I cried.

'Don't worry,' Marco said. 'We'll take care of Tom. Go. Go before they do it to her!'

I hesitated for only a second, as a thousand thoughts went through my head.

Later I would think about that moment. Think maybe . . . maybe . . . if only . . .

I broke into a run. I had to get to her!

As I watched, the two Hork-Bajir on the pier grabbed Ca.s.sie by the arms.

"Nooooo!" she cried.

I tore at full speed. I leaped over Taxxons. I dodged around Hork-Bajir. I practically flew.

But I couldn't really fly. Not the way Tobias could.

I saw him high, high up in the cavern. Down he came.

Like a bullet.

The talons came forward. Tobias. .h.i.t the first Hork-Bajir at about fifty miles an hour. He swooped away, leaving the alien clutching at the slimy mess where his eyes used to be.

That was all Ca.s.sie needed. She broke away and ran back down the pier.

I finally got there and went after the remaining Hork-Bajir-Controller.

'Morph!' I yelled to Ca.s.sie. 'Morph and head back for the stairs!'

She looked at the other humans and Hork-Bajir behind her in the line. "Run! All of you, run!"

They did. Ca.s.sie plowed into the panicky crowd. Moments later a black-maned head appeared above the shoulders of the crowd. Ca.s.sie had become a horse and was racing for the stairs.

I started after her, racing back around the pool toward Marco, Rachel, Tom, and the crowd of hosts they'd freed from the cages.

The Controllers were starting to get organized. A group of Taxxons were slithering out to stop Ca.s.sie and me. Both the Hork-Bajir and the Taxxons were carrying weapons now.

'Up and over!' I said to Ca.s.sie as we neared the line of Taxxons.

'Up and over!' she yelled back.

I leaped. Ca.s.sie jumped. Side by side, we sailed over the startled Taxxons. They fired their hand-held Dracon beams, but too late. The beams sizzled the air behind us and we blew past.

I could see Rachel's towering gray bulk just a-head. The stairs were near. I saw Marco with Tom.

We were going to make it!

And then he stepped out daintily from a group of Hork-Bajir.

He seemed almost harmless in his Andalite body. A gentle half-deer, half-human-looking creature with bluish fur and an extra set of eyes on comical stalks.

Visser Three didn't look all that scary. Not compared to the Hork-Bajir, the Taxxons, or even our own Earth-animals.

But Visser Three had an Andalite body. He had an Andalite's power to morph. And he had been all over the universe acquiring the genetic patterns of monsters like nothing ever seen on Earth.

A Taxxon slithered up beside Visser Three and spoke. It was a weird, half-whistling sound. "Ssssweer trrreeesswew eeeesstrew."

Visser Three said nothing. He just looked at me with the vertical slits that were his eyes.

'This Taxxon fool says you are wild animals,' Visser Three said. 'He wants to know if he and his brothers can eat you.' He laughed silently. 'But I know you are not animals. I know who and what you are. So. Not all of you Andalites died when I burned your ship.'

It took me a couple of seconds to realize what he meant. Then it hit me. Of course! He thought we were Andalites. He'd guessed that we were morphs, not real animals. And he knew that the Andalites were the only species with morphing technology.

'I compliment you on getting this far. But it will accomplish nothing. Because now, my brave Andalite warriors, it is time. Time to die.'

He began to morph.

'I acquired this body on the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star. Like it?'

I realized I'd been wrong to be hopeful.

We were not going to make it.

CHAPTER 26.

From Visser Three's Andalite body, the creature grew. Tall as a tree, towering over even Rachel. Eight ma.s.sive legs. Eight long, spindly arms, each ending in a three-fingered claw. And from the place where the top set of arms grew came the heads.

Heads. Plural. Eight of them. This creature had a thing for the number eight.

Even the Hork-Bajir-Controllers backed away. Even they didn't want to be near Visser Three when he morphed this way.

But the Taxxons edged in closer, crowding around their leader like a pack of hungry dogs looking for table sc.r.a.ps.

I was frozen in terror. Stunned. Even the tiger that was a part of me was confused and worried.

I had started to think that with our morphed bodies we could take on anything. But we couldn't take on this monster. Not and survive.

'Run!' I yelled to the others. 'Up the stairs!'

Ca.s.sie nudged two of the humans from the cages and tossed back her head. They figured out what she wanted and climbed on her back. Then she galloped toward the stairs.

'Yes, run,' Visser Three crowed. 'It makes a more challenging target.'

Then, Visser Three struck.

From one of the heads a round, spinning ball of flame erupted. A ball of flame that flew like a missile.

It skimmed through the air and splatted against the back of one of the women riding Ca.s.sie.

"Ahhhh!" She fell off, screaming and rolling around to put out the flames. Ca.s.sie kept going with only one rider. She reached the base of the stairs.

'Target practiced Visser Three laughed. He fired fireball after fireball, one head after another.

One singed my shoulder and flew past. One hit Rachel in the ear and made her scream in my head and trumpet in terror.

The air was full of fire.

'We have to get out of here!' Marco yelled.

'Yes, run! Run for the stairs!' I repeated. 'Rachel! Get moving! Clear a path!'

A big swarm of us was heading for the stairs, but the Taxxons had closed in around us. Anyone that got away from Visser Three was swarmed over by the Taxxons.

I saw Tom out of the corner of my eye. He was swinging his fists at a pair of Taxxons that were circling around him. Tom couldn't hurt them, but he was trying just the same.

Rachel ran over and plowed into one of them, crushing him beneath her tree-trunk legs. Marco threw his arms around the second Taxxon and twisted till it split open, spilling its putrid guts all over the floor.

Rachel had hit the bottom few stairs and stopped. Elephant bodies are great for some things. But they are useless for climbing stairs.

'Morph back!' I told Rachel.

She began to shrink almost immediately, but there wasn't time to wait until the morphing was complete. Rachel started up the stairs as a shifting ma.s.s of gray and pink, part human, part elephant, staggering on weird, half-finished legs and dragging a shriveled trunk that made her pretty face into something awful to see.

We ran. But it was impossible.

By the time we had climbed a few dozen stairs, there were only a few free humans and two free Hork-Bajir with us. The rest had all been recaptured or burned.

A fireball exploded at my feet and I snarled. But still we retreated.

We were a hundred feet up the stairs when the last two freed Hork-Bajir were brought down by the Visser's fireb.a.l.l.s. They fell in flames.

The Visser was climbing the stairs now, all alone. He was so big he barely fit on the stairs. I knew when we reached the point where the walls closed in around the stairs that we would be safe from Visser Three. Glancing up, I saw that Ca.s.sie was almost to safety above us, with one human rider.

The rest of us, along with Tom and a pitiful handful of freed humans, were bunched together.

Visser Three began pelting the staircase ahead of us with fire. We were trapped. Fire ahead. Visser Three himself behind.

"No," I heard a familiar voice say. "No, you filthy creep. You aren't going to win this time."