Chapter Text
My name is Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad.
And I was about to die. More immediately than I had heretofore expected. It is true that I enjoy a phlegmatic outlook on death; after all, I carry a death sentence in my DNA. However, that did not prevent me from screaming. And it did not prevent my shorm , Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, from reacting to my desperate thoughtspeak.
The Yeerks’ Blade Ship had just cut one of my fighter plane’s engines away from the hull. The ship rocked, stalled--and plummeted toward the atmosphere of the blue and green planet we’d been orbiting.
<Ahhh!>
So sudden! No time for the death ritual. A pilot’s reaction is his blade. It must cut faster than thought. I reacted--too slowly! I managed to direct power to my single remaining thruster. This sent my craft in a wild, looping spiral. It probably saved me from further damage, as I do not believe the Yeerks could sight on such an erratically moving vessel.
But Mertil could.
Mertil is an excellent pilot. One of the best. A credit to the Andalite military.
Nonetheless what he did next would have brought great shame upon him, if anyone had lived to tell of it.
His ship moved out of formation! Toward mine. No one but Mertil could have aimed so precisely. No one but Mertil could have linked his ship’s wing with mine. He angled our descent so that instead of burning through the atmosphere and crashing into the planet’s large ocean, we skimmed over its surface.
Above: the red beams of Dracon fire from the Blade Ship and the answering green beams from the Dome Ship. We were moving so swiftly I almost did not see it… until I did. The Dome, the last piece of the homeworld we carried with us, separated from the ship. Plummeted into the ocean. But no time, no time to think of what that might mean. Instead…
The calmly rippling blue of the ocean beneath us seemed endless. The featurelessness of its surface gave the false impression that our interlocked fighter planes were not moving quickly. But we were! We screamed through the sky, bearing down on the nearby continent. A tiny margin of light-colored beach gave way to a glinting city and then, beyond it, trees…
Mertil was too busy interacting with his ship’s computer to thought-speak, but I could, as always, feel the impression of his mind. He wanted to attain the treeline! He thought that he could slow our descent in time. The forest approached quickly.
Too quickly.
Our race naturally seeks refuge in nature. A cruel irony, in this case.
Landing! The nose of Mertil’s craft tipped lower than mine because of the angle at which he had engaged my wing. Too low! It caught--flipped--tore free--
I tumbled end over end. I caught dizzying glimpses of the surroundings as I rolled to a stop. Glimpses of a sky so pale blue it could not be real, and then trees that were a dark dark green. There was the shearing sound of metal, and agony echoed in my head. Not mine. Mertil--
The pain caused me to lose consciousness. Pain--
Mine?
His?
I regained consciousness. My ship had broken apart. The ship’s computer calmly informed me that both engines had been destroyed. Life support was no longer functional. Z-space thrusters disabled. Shredders disabled. The loud beeping sound that indicated the airlock was open began. I shut it off.
Silence. The noisy landing had likely caused native fauna to evacuate the area.
I hoped it had not had the opposite effect on any nearby Yeerks.
Mertil.
Pain. Mine? His?
I was growing used to pain in my joints and muscles, an irony because I am more powerfully-built than most of my species. It is in fact this very hypertrophy that can indicate disease. A once-beneficial adaptation with a sinister face. You see, damaged muscle will tend to grow. My muscles are damaged frequently. So are my tendons and my nervous system. As my illness progresses, the electrical impulse within muscle and nerve will become more and more erratic. It will cause problems with coordination and even focus of the eyes.
I have mentioned that I have a genetic disease. Soola ’s disease is a progressive ailment. Due to the Andalite military’s need for active combattants, the usual compulsory retirement for Soola sufferers at age 7 had been remanded.
Had the disease slowed my reflexes?
Had it caused the moment of hesitation that allowed the Yeerks their shot?
I will never know. But this question will haunt me, I believe, for the rest of my days.
I was trapped beneath a large piece of the ship’s outer hull. There were burns down my flanks and legs. One leg had blistered from the hoof to the hock. The flexible bottom of my hoof winced in pain when I tried to move it. My ribs made a crackling sound as I breathed. My hearts beat quickly, but regularly.
It was difficult to maneuver myself out from under the metal. The silence had become unnerving; I could not feel even Mertil’s presence in my mind. Could not feel--even sleeping I knew when he was there. Even--
My breathing grew rapid. My heartbeats increased their rate.
Be calm, Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad , I admonished myself. I am not the most skilled at maintaining composure. Be calm .
I was too large to escape from underneath the piece of hull that trapped me. But it was not braced on my body. Instead, it lay athwart a sturdy section of the ship’s outer engine, creating an empty space into which my lower body was wedged.
I focused on one of the two morphs I had acquired in school: the kafit bird.
I shrank. Falling! It felt like I was falling! It had been so long since I had morphed I had forgotten the sensation. I focused myself on the bird. On the beak. The feathers. The six wings. When I opened my eyes again I was a kafit . I could see further into the ultraviolet spectrum than usual, though I missed my stalk eyes. Other, delicate senses told me the direction of the wind; the sense that tells the kafit where to migrate, however, was puzzled. Naturally its orientation toward magnetic polarity only works on the homeworld. I did know this: the bird body did not like being trapped underneath this large piece of metal. It wanted sky. I hopped out from beneath the encumbrance, flapped, and took off.
It was not hard to find the direction in which Mertil’s ship had gone. My ship had skidded further, past the place where Mertil’s had slammed into the ground. I followed the trail of broken trees and flattened foliage back to where he had crash-landed. I could not hear his voice in my head. But I knew he was alive.
What I noticed first was that the ship had been destroyed. Crushed. The proud arc of its stinging Shredder cannon, back-mounted in imitation of our own Andalite tails, had been twisted and melted beyond recognition. The cockpit bulged inward unnaturally. But unlike my ship, Mertil’s had not spontaneously opened its airlock. I landed, fluttering all of the kafit ’s wings in agitation as I did. I demorphed.
Naturally I had the code to Mertil’s ship. It was his highest driftball score, 8312. He selected this password after I complained that I could not remember the complex algorithm he originally used. I am sure he chose the number specifically because my own best driftball score is quite a bit lower. Driftball, after all, is a tactical game that relies upon patience and the ability to plan several steps ahead. I am not known for those characteristics.
I punched in the code. I waited for the airlock to open. It began--but then it stopped. I saw that the hull had become deformed so that the airlock door had jammed.
No!
I attempted to insert my fingers into the narrow crack that had appeared and pulled--hard. I stopped only after all of the big muscles in my arms and chest began spasming, took a breath, and stepped back.
Stupid, Gafinilan, I reprimanded myself. I galloped back toward my ship. Stupid! I had left my handheld Shredder weapon behind. Frantically, I searched the wreckage until I found it, along with the bandolier of fuel cells that must have fallen from my body when I morphed to kafit . I returned to Mertil’s ship. This time, with my Shredder set to High, I was able to vaporize the recalcitrant door to the airlock. And I crawled… sprawled inside.
At first I thought perhaps it was a dream. It could not be real. Mertil--caught in the crumpled remains of the ship’s cockpit, arms limp. Stalk eyes only half-closed, as occurs in unconsciousness or--or--
<No. No!>
The air inside of the ship smelled like Andalite grass. It smelled like the fragrance Mertil preferred in our home scoop and carried with him on missions in a small dispenser, so that it could waft throughout his ship.
It also smelled like blood.
I fought my way in. Toward Mertil. I touched his skin. Warm! He was warm to the touch. I took no time. I began stripping the area of wreckage. When I had to, I vaporized small pieces of the ship with my Shredder. When I could not, when the work was too delicate, I used my hands. I had to stop several times because I was shaking. Probably not due to Soola ’s disease. Most likely due to fear.
When I finally pulled Mertil free, I could not at first find the source of the blood pooling around my hooves. I had closed them, but still I tasted it. Blood.
Mertil’s upper body was largely unharmed, save for some superficial burns and scratches from the ship’s fragmentation. Then I saw it. His back legs had been broken, one nearly shattered. The upper vertebrae of his tail hung at a terrible, unnatural angle. And his tail--his tail--
A section of his ship had fallen inward, similarly to mine. But where mine had created a space in which I had wedged myself, his had cut directly through the flesh of his tail, several feet before the blade. I had pulled him free gently, I could swear it. Could swear that I had felt no resistance or ripping… but the lower portion of his tail simply was not there. It had been crushed. Pulverized. All that was left was a stump, cauterized by the speed and force of the sharp metal’s impact. The blood was not coming from the stump. It was leaking from the crushed portion of his tail that had been flattened beneath the fallen piece of ship.
I felt sick.
I picked him up. I gathered his body painstakingly in my arms and lifted him free of the wreck.
I lay him on the strange Earth grass, which tasted of chlorophyll, smoke, and local pollutants. I could not resist pausing to press one palm to his cheek. Then I ducked back into his ship to secure the medical equipment. I breathed a long breath of relief when I saw that his ship still had an intact auxiliary power source, a well as an emergency force field generator. Its medical kit was limited but adequate to handle fractures and abrasions. When I scanned his body, however, the scanner noted internal injuries that would require immobilization.
I did not foresee too many difficulties there, as he was unconscious. But. Surely the Yeerks would explore the crash site soon. It was imperative to get him away from this artificial clearing and into the relative safety of deeper woods… supposing that these woods were safe. We had been briefed on flora and fauna native to this planet, but it was impossible to index it completely. Impossible! If our scanners had been close to accurate, this “Earth” had a biodiversity unique among discovered planets. And some of its animals--including its dominant sentient race, the humans--could be dangerous.
Carefully, carefully, I slid a mobile stretcher beneath him and allowed it to secure his body in a way that would not disturb his injuries. Carefully, I salvaged what equipment I could from the ship. And then I melted away into the woods, pushing Mertil gently alongside me, navigating around trees. Hoping that he would wake up.
Fearing what would happen when he did.