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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
ran.
I heard a door slam. Heard a wheel spin.
Then the mace-wielding Nartec was back. He was back, but not the same, anymore. His
rubbery, blue skin was now covered in a spreading pattern that looked a lot like
feathers.
CHAPTER 20
It took several minutes for my head to clear. By then Tobias had morphed back to the
red tailed hawk.
There was loud banging on the door of the operating room.
"Tobias? Nice to see you, man."
Rachel gave him a hug - or as close as she could come with a bird. Then she yelled
at him, "Cut it kind of close, didn't you?"
slow, and easily tired out of the water. They're much stronger in the wet. But
probably not ten percent of the population is strong enough dry to go on a long
walk. This Naca guy is one of the lucky few.
Like the guards they let you see. My morph was not so good.>
I nodded toward the closed and locked steel hatch. "Bad guys out there?"
another thing.>
"Now about Ax?"
He pointed to a second, smaller hatch. Rachel spun the wheel lock and yanked it
open. Cold air blew out. It was a refrigerator. An airtight one.
Ax stepped out looking about as mad as I've seen him.
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36 - The Mutation
he said
archly.
"Don't complain," Cassie said. "You wouldn't have enjoyed the extraction process."
"They use the entire body. Grind it up and process it, and stuff whatever is left,"
Cassie explained.
"I screwed up," I said. "I forgot they were amphibious. That's how they surprised us
on the causeway. But they don't know we can fly." I pointed at the round, open
porthole. "They'll get in here soon. Let's be somewhere else."
We morphed. The Nartec broke down the door just as the last of us cleared the
porthole and took to the air.
Rachel said.
out of here. Tobias? Can you get us back?>
Rachel said.
prisoner with us.>
Tobias led us back to the air over the dock. We landed in an alley not much
different from the alleys we used at home. Trash is trash, I guess, anywhere in the
galaxy. It was the equivalent of two blocks to the Sea Blade.
Marco mocked.
Feet and paws and pads pounding, hooves clopping, we ran toward the wooden dock.
Through the narrow Nartec streets. Across stretches of sand and mud and shells.
Past staring Nartec citizens. Mothers pulling their kids out of the way. Vendors
crying out as we pushed over carts and stands in our path.
A tiger, a bear, a wolf, a gorilla, a hawk, and an Andalite, we managed to be in
plain sight in this, the strangest of places.
Cassie cried.
I heard voices rising. The dim rumble of a crowd forming.
Tobias dove for the open door. Slowed so we could see where he went. He was first
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36 - The Mutation
inside, but Rachel was just a few feet behind. Several Nartec tried to block her
path. She hit them like a runaway bus.
Nothing stands where a grizzly bear charges. Nothing made out of flesh and blood,
anyway.
We piled through in her wake. She grasped the edge of the heavy, metal door with one
massive paw and -
WHAAAMMM!
Threw the door shut and with Marco's help slid the bolts into place and secured the
latches.
Ax's voice was grim.
visser's former crew from their stations.>
We hurried on through a corridor that led into n i milml control room.
And stopped dead in our tracks at the threshold of the bridge.
Cassie gasped.
Mummified Hork-Bajir.
Sitting upright in the various chairs for pilot and other crew. Standing at a video
display screen. ! Leaning over a radar map.
I swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising in my throat. I
snapped.
Though the mummified Hork-Bajir weighed conciderably less than they had alive - with
bones and blood and muscle - it still wasn't easy to remove their stiff bladed
bodies from the crew's stations.
And it wasn't easy to touch them.
Knowing they'd been breathing only hours before.
Remembering the Hork-Bajir cries I'd heard while in Soco's palace.
Remembering Hahn.
Ax stood at the main control panel on the bridge, his back to us.
adequately repaired. At least as far as I can tell. However, there is a security
protocol I must now attempt to bypass.>
He fluttered over and looked outside.
And it's not happy. Maybe a hundred of them out there. Armed.>
I ran over to look out the porthole. It was as he'd reported. A crowd of Nartec
armed with spears, rifles, flamethrowers, machine guns, swords, clubs, grenades, and
longbows.
The crowd was on the move. Coming for us.
Ax said, his voice agitated.
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36 - The Mutation
complex than I had hoped - or assumed. I cannot access the ship's weapons until - >
Buh-Boom!
Sheeeeeeewowww!
WHAMMMM!
The Sea Blade rocked violently in its berth.
I saw smoke curling from the barrel of a fiveinch naval gun mounted atop Queen
Soco's palace.
More and larger guns were slowly traversing, bringing their barrels to bear on us.
They couldn't miss at this range. The Sea Blade had been crippled by a pod of killer
whales. Those shells, some as heavy as small cars, would blow the Sea Blade apart.
CHAPTER 21
I said.
Tobias said.
Bun-Boom!
The five-inch gun had fired again.
S h eeeeeeeewwwwww!
The shell screamed toward us.
WHAAMMMM!
My tiger paws kept me from falling over from the impact. But Ax sprawled, scrambled
back up.
Tobias reported from his perch near the porthole.
I heard rapid, rushing footsteps on the deck outside.
Rachel demanded.
I ran toward the outer
hatch. That was the place to stop them.
I reached the hatch and waited, braced for the onslaught. It was quick in coming. A
body of Nartec came swarming. But a swarm can't move through a hatch designed for
Hork-Bajir in single file.
A spear lanced by my head, and shredded my left ear. It was followed by the Nartec
who had thrown it, wearing at least three other crude weapons on his body.
I backed up, waited till he was framed in the hatchway and leaped. I hit him, paws
out but claws retracted. The impact knocked him back into his brother Nartec.
A Nartec warrior nimbly leaped over his fallen friend and I batted him down in
mid-leap.
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36 - The Mutation
One after the other heavily armed Nartec warriors swarmed toward me.
Old and young. Each one grasping a weapon. Another weapon strapped to his side or
back. Some with knives held in their teeth.
Walking arsenals.
We were trapped! Nothing to do but to fight!
And now, someone had decided to go to more modern weapons.
BlamBlamBlamBlamBlam!
Twanggg!
The machine-gun bullets ricocheted off steel bulkheads. One passed through my right
hind leg. Another through the haunch directly above it.
The pain staggered me. My right rear leg was weakened. I backed up, gave way to
Rachel.
She moved with the deceptive grace of the huge grizzly bear and more than filled the
opening.
BlamBlamBlamBlam!
Hhhhoooroarrrrr!
An unwary Nartec leaped at Rachel, armed only with a sword. Rachel grabbed him in a
bear hug. Literally. One massive arm wrapped around the helplessly struggling
mutant. She held him with absolute ease. His weight irrelevant to her power.
And she used him as a shield.
The gunfire stopped instantly. The Nartec saw that they could not fire without
killing one of their own. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
