39Be afraid, be very afraid.
Disclaimer- I have NO idea what I'm going to do with this story so can we just say nothing is mine please? Maybe I'll write a giant disclaimer for the end or something anyhow let's start with the obvious, Animorphs isn't mine, half the jokes won't be mine (kidding), hell the concept isn't even mine I'm just doing it with humor.
~The Continued~
Chapter One: Marco
Jake took a deep breath. He looked around the bridge at each of us. At Tobias. At me. "What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"
I nodded, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.
There was a dangerous smile on Jake's face.
Rachel's smile.
"Full emergency power to the engines," Jake said. "Ram the Blade ship."
DUH! DUH! DA!
"Oh you have GOT to be shitting us." I replied.
"Well I'm glad the book cut off before you got to say that." Jake told me, "No I'm not shitting you, ram the bloody thing."
"You sure about that?"
"I'm positive." Jake told me calmly.
"How positive?" I asked him.
Oh Christ, Tobias cut in before Jake could tell me, didn't we go through that in another fic?
"Two fics actually" I said.
"We have thirty seconds to impact here Jake" Menderash suddenly spoke up.
I turned to the ship's viewscreen, it was definantly not a comforting site, I could see right through the Blade ship's windscreen, I was so close I could see the ship's pilot mouth the words 'that isn't good' and further in the background the stewardess was explaining to panicked controllers what to do in the event of a space ship collision, basically put your lunch tray in the upright position, bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your sweet ass goodbye.
Jake said something to me which I didn't quite hear.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Worried I made the wrong decision?" He repeated.
"Nah." I said, "I bought the flight insurance."
Then I could hear 'The One' laughing like a crazed evil jackel. I turned back to the viewscreen, the fuzzy dice that hung from the Blade ships rear vision mirror rushed up to greet me, there was a explosion louder than a front row seat, next to the speakers at a 'Big Day Out' concert. Then I slipped into endless black with the laughter from the evil thing Ax had become still ringing in my ears.
On reflection I really hoped I survived, I wouldn't want my exit from this world to sound so God-damn dramatic.
Chapter Two: Jake
Last thing I remebered was the hideous laughter of 'The One' and then it all went dark.
Then I was woken up. Someone was standing over me but I couldn't see who, my vision was so blurry, my head hurt, my arms hurt, my crotch hurt... Oh screw it basically I ached all over.
"Professor?" My vision cleared and I saw it was Santorelli, Santorelli was alive? I was alive?
"Santorelli," I said, my voice wavered. "Aren't we dead now?"
Santorelli was obviously amused "No sir," he smiled "I checked myself for holes but nope, just the usual ones." His grin widened, I recognised his joy from back in my days as an Animorph, the good old 'Holy Hell, I can't believe we survived that, happy to be alive.'
I sat up suddenly, turning a furious ache in my back to even angrier stabs of pain, "How's everyone else doing?" I asked.
"I could do with a cup of coffee." Jeanne spoke up, "But I'll live." I looked over in the direction of her voice, she was sitting bent over, rubbing her temples, looking like she had a vicious migraine but otherwise unhurt.
"Marco and Tobias?" I looked around.
"They're alright but still unconcious." Santorelli told me.
"Menderash?" I asked but looking around I saw him sitting up in the pilot's chair, inspecting the ship's instruments. "How's Rachel going Menderash?"
Menderash turned my way, "well considering she's dead I doubt she's going to well, although maybe we could get Ouija board and ask her."
I rubbed my temples out of annoyence and sucked air through my teeth "the ship Menderash, the ship."
"Oh right, well the pilots chair doesn't go up and down anymore and the radio now only picks a non-stop 'country and western' music channel, but I can't detect anymore damage."
"Really? Well that's good news." I was surprised, we were all alive and the ship was in perfect health.
"Actually it's not," Menderash interrupted my train of thought. "The reason I can't detect anymore damage is because the part of the ship that detects damage was destroyed entirely during the attack."
"Oh." was all I could say.
"This is very bad because that particular part was spread through the entire back half of the ship."
"Oh." Was all I could come up with again.
"We had a look around the old fasioned way professor." Jeanne told me, "we checked for damage."
"And?" I wasn't sure I really wanted an answer.
"It isn't good." Santorelli replied.
"Engines?"
"Gone."
"Food stores?"
"Gone."
"Communications?"
"Gone."
"Weapon systems?"
"Gone."
"Even the kitchen sink?"
"Yes it's gone."
I was getting a little exasperated, "What's left then?"
"It's appears this room is the only thing that survived the ramming." Jeanne said.
"How the hell does that work?" I nearly yelled.
"The command room has been specially designed to be extra hardy." Menderash answered, "It can go down more times than Maryah Carey and still stay strong."
I was amused despite myself, an Andalite who could tell a decent joke? Interesting. "Is there any good news?"
"Well during the attack the string snapped for the fuzzy dice that were hanging from our rear vision mirror so we now have a slightly more tasteful cockpit." Menderash said.
"Great, just great, where are we by the way?" I asked.
"We crash landed on a nearby planet in the middle of the Kelbrid systrem," Menderash replied, "I believe it's inhabited, atmosphere's breathable, gravity and conditions basically those of Earth."
"Well that's some good news at least." Santorelli said, "Out of all the planets to crash-land on at least we were lucky enough to land on one with Earth-like conditions."
"Not much luck to it really," Menderash said, "They're all like that, haven't you ever seen 'Star-Trek'?"
"Oh yeah."
"Alright here's the plan." I spoke up, "When Marco and Tobias come round we'll check the place out alright?"
Chapter Three: Marco
Oy vey, I ached all over.
I opened my eyes and tried to look around but my vision was all fractured and blurry, I blinked a couple of times and it cleared a little.
A feminine heavily-accented voice floated in from outside my vision, "Wakey wakey, get off the floor gorgeous."
"...Can't...Dead..." I moaned.
"No, you're not." The voice replied, unmistakably Jeanne, man did I love her accent.
"Are you sure?" I asked her.
"Very."
"That's the best news I've heard all day. especially since I wouldn't want to die without ever having made love to your beautiful self." I sniggered despite my pain.
"You're not dead Marco, although you soon could be." I could hear the smile through her voice.
With a stupid grin on my face I turned on my side, "So you'll give it some thought then?"
She gave a gasp of both exasperation and more so amusement then turned away to Jake "Hey professor, our young Casanova is awake. Unfortuantly." She turned back to me and battered her eyelashes for my benifit.
God did she remind me so much of Rachel.
I staggered to my feet, rubbing my forehead, damnit if I didn't have the mudda and pappa of all headaches, I felt like Robert Downey Jr after a night out on the town but other wise I seemed okay.
"How you feeling?" Jake asked.
"Like Robert Downey Jr after a night out on the town, (hey there was no point in wasting a good line,) but otherwise okay, how's everyone else doing?"
"We're all fine, we've been waiting for you, you're the last to wake up." Jake told me.
"Yeah well, I never was much of a morning person." I swallowed, my throat felt dry and papery.
"Well if there are no objections, let's go have a looksie outside." Jake told everyone.
Well that was wierd, "woah woah Jake, outside? Where are we?"
"We crash landed on a 'Kelbrid' planet. Strange, unknown, most likley dangerous as hell," Jake grinned, "fun huh?"
"Yeah, it sounds like one bitchen barrel of monkeys to me." I drawled. "Well I'm up for it, any instructions big Jake?"
Tobias instead supplied some instructions, rather more sarcastic than needed I thought. Yeah, set phasers to nuke, shoot to kill and if the Kelbrid take you alive don't let them give you to the women.
Jeanne chuckled at this and I looked over at Tobias, by hawk standards he looked about as bad as I felt. "Hey bird-boy, never thought I'd be so glad to see you, how you doing?"
He preened at one of his ruffled feathers I'm hungry, in pain, I'm too tired to morph and mend myself and I can tell you this: not in all my years of solitude did I miss any aspect of civilised society as deeply as I miss caffine right now. You?
"Well, I'm alive which is better than I expected to be this morning so can't complain."
Tobias fixed his intense hawk gaze on me, please Marco, I'm having a very bad day, I don't think I could take it if you start being cheery.
"Okay point taken." Just the fact of his terminally bad mood put me in a better one. Misery may love company but his wasn't going to find companionship in me, I was alive so who cares?
"Are we leaving now professor?" Santorelli asked Jake.
"Yeah lets get out of here" Jake said and he headed over to the cockpit door but when he opened it I gave a little gasp of surprise.
That door should have lead into the main hallway, it seemed that was no longer the case, basically because there no longer was a main hallway and apparently nothing else either.
Jake looked out the door to the surrounding landscape, we were obviously somewhere in the middle of an alien forest, what was left of the ship had landed in the middle of a huge clearing, well that is to say it made the large clearing when it landed, the trees had collapsed and the ground was black and burned.
"Guess we must have made one hell of an entrance." Jake muttered and he jumped out the door and landed on the ashy ground that laid 5 or 6 feet bellow the bottum of the dooway, "watch out for that first step!" He yelled up.
We all exited the ship without any trouble and set off for the treeline, Jake made the call for us to head out, he gave us no reason why, nobody asked him either, because we all knew why. When we had come down we must have made one hell of a bang and if the Kelbrid come looking the crash-site would be pretty bloody easy for them to find.
And even easier for 'The One.'
We reached the crater's edge and I looked back at what remained of our ship, it truely was just the command room, a battered, ugly black cylinder. It was useless as a space craft and as dead as the girl it had been named after many months ago.
"Everyone remember where we parked." I called to the others as we walked into the dark, alien forest.
Britz-To be continued ladies and gentle man, how about writing me a review and telling me if you'd like me to:
A: Stop checking the reviews for my latest story and get to writing the second bit already.
B: EAT AT JOE'S.
C: Forget about writing this story and begin writing the ultimate fanfic, an in-depth, touching piece about monkeys writing 'Hamlet'.
D: Beat out my own fic-obbessed brains with a sack full of doorknobs.
SELECT NOW!
