«Perfect time for a surprise attack,» Rachel said. «We’re like serious tonnage of battering ram here. And they’re probably feeling pretty cocky.»
«More tonnage on the way. Look who’s joined us,» Tobias said.
Two orcas. Not humans in morph. The real thing.
I laughed. «l appreciate their support but I don’t want them getting killed for our sake.»
33 So far we were easily keeping pace with the Sea Blade. But sooner or later it would accelerate. Rachel was right. Now was as good a time as any.
«0kay, we go for the stern. What seems to be the tail in your echolocation picture. Tobias, Rachel, Marco go left. Cassie and Ax with me.»
We spread wide, seemingly a pod of orca going in two separate directions. We surfaced, Cassie, Ax, and me. We breathed deeply.
«Let’sgo,» I said.
It sounded so matter-of-fact. I’d begun to get used to giving orders. Probably not a good thing.
We submerged and suddenly veered for the Sea Blade. Six whales hopefully hitting the engines. That had to hurt. Had to shake something loose. Had to bust a seam and spring a few leaks.
Full power into our flukes, full speed, all that mass, had to hurt, had to do damage.
Had to.
A thousand yards. Five hundred yards.
Only two hundred yards!
I fired a burst of clicks. The Sea Blade/whale was different. Picture different. Like . . .
«lt’sturning!»
«He sees us!»
The sub was coming straight for us. And it had dropped all pretense of moving at whale speed. The sub was coming for us at a sudden and accelerating fifty knots.
34 CHAPTER 6
TSEEEWWW!
Dracon beam!
A horrible shrieking! An inhuman scream of pain, silenced too abruptly.
I fired clicks. Weird, impossible picture. Not six orca. Not eight. Nine.
Nine.
What?
«0h, God!» I cried.
One of the orcas had been split lengthwise. There were two echo pictures where there should have been one.
Sliced in half! Like a loaf of Italian bread cut open to make a sandwich.
The two enormous halves of the whale began
35 to sink toward the ocean floor. The water darkened, thickened with blood.
Engulfed us! Billowed out from the torn halves of the massive creature.
«Who was hit?» I cried.
«Demorph!» Tobias yelled.
«lt’s not me!» Cassie answered. «Ax! Marco!»
«l am unharmed,» Ax answered.
«l’m mentally destroyed. Tell me that didn’t happen.» Marco.
Relief. One of the real orca. Simple, dumb luck.
Fear. One more shot and next time ... No chance even to avoid the beam.
No time to be afraid. Act! Do something, Jake!
«Prince Jake!»
TSEEEWWW!! TSEEEWWW!
Another yellow beam lanced the murk, missing me by millimeters.
«Jake! You’ve been hit!»
Impossible! I hadn’t felt. . .
Another billowing red cloud surrounded me.
And then I felt the pain. I clicked and saw a piece of the whale’s body, my body, spiraling down, down. The top three feet of my dorsal fin! Shaved off.
Clickclickclickclick.
36 A different angle. I needed eyes not clicks! I needed to see!
No. No, the orca chased down sea lions with its senses. It was enough. Calm down. Get a gr -
TSEEEEEW!
The Sea Blade moved again. It was over us now, a dark cloud raining killer beams.
TSEEEWW! TSEEEWWW!
«Prince Jake, you are losing too much blood! You must swim out of range and - »
TSEEEWWW!
Another foot-long slice of me was gone!
Blood. More blood.
What should I do?
«What. . . »
I was confused. Couldn’t think straight.
Thunk! Thunk!
Two of us slammed into the sub. And for a moment the sub was visible to my blurred eyes. I saw the black wings, the engines, the blister pods.
The firing stopped.
«Good hit, Rachel.» Marco. His voice was far away.
And from an even greater distance, Ax. «A very impressive dent, Tobias.»
«Jake! You have to demorph! We have to get to the surface!»
37 I couldn’t...
Cassie’s voice. Desperate now.
«Jake! Roll over onto your belly. You’re just back from my blowhole. I’m going to let my air out slowly for you to take in. Listen to me, Jake. It’s your only chance!»
40 CHAPTER 7
•L woke from a gray dream.
Sprawled on the back of a killer whale.
Breathing air from its blowhole.
Carefully, weakly sucking a small mouthful of air at a time.
But this was no dream. This was my nightmare I ike reality.
We breached.
Cassie blew out the last of her air along with a froth of seawater.
I started to slide off her slippery back. Grabbed onto her dorsal fin. Coughed and retched and spit out the water that had collected in my lungs.
41 «Jake?»
”I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m going to morph back to orca. You get back to the fight.”
«Take a minute. Rest,» Cassie said. «Please.»
I shook my head.
”Impossible. Tell everyone to take them in the belly. Hear me? From beneath! Now go!”
I rolled off Cassie’s great curved back and treaded water in the calm sea.
I watched as she descended. As she dove back into the thick of the battle. And I wondered for about two seconds if I were doing the right thing.
Then I looked up at the darkening sky and thought: killer whale.
And within minutes I became an orca for the second time that night. Eight tons and twenty feet of oceangoing, deep-diving mammal.
Below me I heard a panic of thought-speak. The confused, agitated babble you hear in old recordings of fighter planes in dogfights.
I dove and clicked. And saw the Sea Blade. Saw my friends diving beneath it.
Whoever was driving the Sea Blade knew who and what we were. He was diving, too. It was a race to the bottom. And by now we were far out to sea and the bottom was a mile below us.
42 TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW!
What had been random artillery practice was now a determined plan to eliminate the Andalite bandits.
TSEEEWWW!
Ax! His dorsal fin had been lanced clean off. There was a chunk missing from his side, like a fishmonger had sliced out a fillet.
I felt something brush my side. A floating mass of black-skinned blubber. Whose? Watched as what seemed like gallons of blood poured from the ten-foot wound.
«Ax! Get to the surface!»
«No, Prince Jake. Forgive me for disobeying your orders. I will stay as long as I am able to be of service.»
«Don’t do something stupid, Ax,» I cornmanded. «Get out when you have to. That’s an order.»
«Jake, we can’t get another clear shot!» Cassie cried. «The ship’s too fast. We can’t get under him!»
«Yeah and this underwater Dracon beam thing is a slight prob . . . !»
TSEEEWWW!
«Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!» Marco screamed.
TSEEEWWW!
Beneath us!
43 And now, slowly, in shimmers and fades, the ship appeared. The cloaking devices were turned off and we could see it clearly. Or as clearly as the whale’s eyes could see through dark water.
It was a velvety black mass. Like some huge, dark predator animal. Hunkering down, ready to pounce. Dracon beams poised.
Why had it appeared?
No time to wonder. No choice. If we turned and ran we’d be cut up one by one. My plan was a disaster. Foolish. I’d led us all into a trap.
No time for regrets. Better to do down fighting than to
sit around and wait for death.
«0kay,» I said grimly. «We’ll give them what they want. All of us. We hit at the same time. Top speed.»
Marco said an extremely rude word. I couldn’t blame him.
«lt’s what we came for,» Rachel said.
«0n the count of three,» I ordered. «0ne. Two. Three!» , «AAAHHH!»
We dove!
Six big orca at top speed!
Like a rushing, runaway train we powered down on the Sea Blade! Until none of us could have stopped if we’d tried.
TSEEEWWW!
44 «Aaahhhh!»
TSEEEWWW!
Staggering pain. No time. Move! Keep movingl
Twenty feet. Ten. Inches.
B-B-BOOOOMMMM!
We hit!
Pain seared through my head.
I clicked and saw five mammoth whale bodies rolling away and off the ship, stunned.
I rolled away. Couldn’t see for a moment. My own blood clouded the water. Where was I? Where was the air?
Then the blood cleared. I could see the Sea Blade, improbably above me. No, I was turned around. And the ship was on its side.
The tail section of the Sea Blade was a mangled mess. The ship listed badly to the left. Black liquid poured from its fuselage.
«We did it!» Cassie cried. «We destroyed the Sea - !»
TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW!
Yellow Dracon beams shot crazily out of the torn-up vessel! As if the ship itself was furious. Wounded and out of control.
TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW!
«UGGGHHH!»
«AAAGGGHHH!»
A hideous pain in my side! I clicked and saw an orca, belly sliced open. Guts spilling into the dark water.
Another orca, both flippers gone!
Suddenly, the water was opaque with blood and gore.
«Up! Surface! Now!» I cried.
46 CHAPTER 8
I dove under a bleeding orca and pushed.
Felt another body under mine.
Slowly, up. Up.
«Demorph!» I commanded. «Start now! Everybody. We make smaller targets as humans.»
«Jake ... I can’t. . . »
Who was it who spoke? One or all of us? «You lave to. That’s an order.»
I clicked and saw the Sea Blade below us. rumbling. Sinking! Disappearing behind the coral reef.
We had defeated the Sea Blade. But had I condemned my friends to death in the process?
Had I been so bent on avenging Hahn’s death
47 I’d taken foolish risks? Failed to make the right calls? Blundered in like a fool without a clue?
Failed . . .
Frantic thought-speak, all around me. But for some reason I couldn’t make out the words.
I tried to say something . . . and couldn’t do that, either.
I was losing consciousness. Had I been hit that badly? Had I begun my own demorph?
I clicked and saw - nothing.
Demorph! I told myself. Demorph!
Vaguely I felt the changes begin. Or did I?
Vaguely I felt a body beneath mine.
And suddenly, I was being lifted with tremendous force toward the surface. Toward the beautiful night sky. Toward the heavens.
«Jake! My blowhole!»
Too late! I felt my small human body slipping, sliding.
Into the water.
Where I began to drown.
SCHLUUP!
What - !
Suddenly I was imprisoned in a white-ribbed cage!
Water rushed through the bars of the cage and over my drowsy body.
And then -AIR!
Glorious air!
48
r
The cold, clean air woke me.
Startled me back to bizarre reality.
I lay curled in the massive jaw of an orca. A whale that was breaching, soaring fifteen feet above the surface of the ocean.
And then -”AAAGGGHHH!”
II was flying through that glorious air! Alone! The whale had let me go! Pah-LOOOSH! The father of all belly flops! Wind knocked out of me. Bruised. Disoriented, agging on salt water. I thrashed wildly. A spindly uman in an endless sea. There was no choice if I were going to make
Brutally conscious, teeth chattering, body achig, I forced myself to morph the orca. A third me. «Jake? Are you okay?» It was Rachel. «Sorry I had to toss you around like that but you were
drowning.»
I clicked. Counted two sperm whales and
three orca.
«That’s okay. Is ... is everyone here?» I asked.
«Yeah,» Tobias said. «0ur real orca buddy took off a while back. We’re here. We’re remorphed. And we’re ready.»
Marco groaned. «l knew this night wasn’t over.»
49 «Rachel? A very sweet save,» I said. «Thanks. We have to make sure the Sea Blade is really out of commission. The last I saw it was still sinking. We locate it, assess the situation, take it from there. Everybody? Dive.»
Again, into the darkness. Beyond the reach of the moonlight. Echolocation our only guide.
«l don’t see any sign of it,» Cassie said.
«Maybe it drifted off?» Rachel mused. «l don’t know. Is the current this far down strong enough to . . . »
«Look!» I cried. «To the right. About three o’clock.»
It was the Sea Blade. Still listing. Still leaking fuel. Hovering before what seemed to be a cave.
We moved closer. As cautiously as the huge beasts could. Completely conspicuous.
When we were still about a hundred yards away from the ship, we stopped.
«The opening of that cave is far too narrow for the Sea Blade to get through,» Cassie observed. «They can’t be hoping to hide, can they?»
«Then what’re they doing?» Marco said. «Taking a donut break? If Visser Three was on that sub he’d have bailed. There’s got to be an escape sub or something on board, right?»
«0ne would assume so,» Ax replied. «But none of us has seen another vessel . . . »
50 «Ax-man,» I said suddenly. «Everyone? Straight ahead.»
Through the waving underwater plants that grew around the mouth of the cave came three, four, five – creatures. Vaguely human in shape. Vaguely aquatic.
«0kay a rescue crew?» Marco wondered.
«From where?» I said.
The five creatures surrounded the Sea Blade^ Attached ropes or pulleys of some sort to the ship.
WHHHOOOSSSHHH!
And then, with an impossibly swift motion, the creatures, whatever they were, drew Sea Blade through the narrow opening of the sea cave!
51 »..! g»-«j.X*»J «..,» .... . «*.*-
CHAPTER 9
«Well, that was weird,» Rachel said.
«Not to mention impossible. How’d they do that?» Marco.
«l think the bigger question is who did that?» Tobias said. «They definitely weren’t human.»
«Whoever they are, what do they want with the Sea Blade?» Cassie added.
«Prince Jake?» Ax said, questioning, prodding me to decide.
I was feeling like I’d made too many decisions in the last hour or so. Too many bad ones. And yet ...
«We follow,» I said. «Whatever those were, they could have been some new Yeerk host body
52 or whatever. That may be some kind of Yeerk facility.»
«Yeah, either that or Atlantis,» Marco said with a laugh.
«We’re too big in this morph,» Cassie said. «We might get in, but maneuvering inside a cave as an orca? Could end up being sardines.»
Suggestions, Cassie?»
«Not the dolphin. Nothing that breathes air. Not in a cave. I think we need the hammerheads. Their electromagnetic capabilities might prove useful in an underground environments
«0kay. Everybody to the surface and demorph.» L
We did.
Four human kids, a hawk, and an Andalite.
I looked at us, bobbing in the midnight ocean.
&nbs
p; My best friend. My cousin. My girlfriend.
A nothlitand an alien.
My friends.
Bedraggled. Wet. Cold. Incredibly tired.
Hair plastered to their heads. Lips blue. Bodies shivering.
And I was asking them to do it again. Again!
For the third or fourth time in less than an hour.
To morph and dive deep, deep into the chilling dark ocean. To hunt down the Sea Blade.
Sometimes I hate my life.
53 ”Let’s go, boys and girls.”
Again my body shot out behind me. Sleekened. My legs melted together into a V-shaped tail. An elegant dorsal fin rose from my back.
My skin became tough, rough. Sandpapery.
My face ... my face was not pretty.
It flattened. Widened as rows and rows of teeth marched back toward my throat.
My forehead spread to either side to form two tough fleshy wings.
POP! POP!
An eye appeared at the end of each wing.
My head measured over two feet across!
I could sense food. Prey.
I wanted to kill it. Eat it.
Not bother to swallow it first. Not consider what was sliding down my throat. Not care if it was another hammerhead . . .
«Jake!» Tobias ordered. «Get a grip!»
The human part of me shuddered. I’d grazed Tobias with my teeth. A thin red line appeared on his eleven-foot-long body.
«Sorry, man. I must be tired. Let’s go.»
We dove back down to the sea cave. There was no trace of the Sea Blade.
For one small moment I hesitated. And then I thought of Hahn. Anger’s a pretty good motivator.
Pride’s a pretty good motivator, too. I was going to win this battle. The Yeerks weren’t going to
54 escape. Get them now and we wouldn’t have to come back.
I had all kinds of good reasons to go forward. No reason for turning back, except fear. And another feeling, like fear, but subtly different.
That cave, those creatures, something about it all gave me the unholy creeps.
«Here we go,» I said.
I led the way through the narrow passageway. Inside the cave, through the giant undulating fronds of ocean plants that obscured, then revealed the opening.
Darkness. Total and complete.
Do you know what that means? Total and complete darkness?
The Mutation Page 3