Okay! The long awaited hour four is here! What? It hasn't been awaited? You forgot about this fic months ago? Oh...well...that kind of makes sense. BUT jog your memory guy, cause its back! (get it? guy, cause only one person reads this, haha ha ha)
Now I'm back in school, which actually gives me more free time somehow, and the new season of 24 started which constantly motivates me, so maybe things will move a little faster perhaps.
Also, I have modified the last three hours because they weren't quite right at a few places, mostly just minor changes here and there, add a little character. And the opening scene of the story has been completely changed, cause the last one was wicked lame, and this one is only kinda lame.
So...i hope you like it! If you do, let me know please. And if anyone has any advice for me, as evidence from the changes I did already, I'm always looking to improve the story as much as possible, even if it means changing things I've already posted and pissing all of you off
Previously on A24
With the help of Dr. Walters, Jake and Marco subdue Raul and Ramon. The FBI, led by Agent Baker, use the loss of power to raid the Biozyme building. Unfortunately, the terrorists have disappeared with the help of Jake and Marco, who have morphed Raul and Ramon and escaped with the other terrorists in an attempt to find out what they know. Meanwhile, Rachel and Cassie find out that the attack on Biozyme is only the beginning, and that the real attack will take place in the forest. But before they can get away, they are discovered in a restricted zone. The missing scientists remain unaccounted for as the FBI team receives a message from Davis to avoid the wing they are being held in due to hazardous materials. Ax and Tobias’ interrogation finally pays off as they learn that a ship will be landing in the forest soon. As Baker gets to the bottom of the suspicious shooting of the only terrorist captured, he is knocked out and brought to be infested…
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN 4:00 P.M. AND 5:00 P.M.
Events Occur in Real Time
4:00:00 P.M. Biozyme IndustriesThe two girls followed the large, heavily armed man as he crossed through the lobby, leading them out, “Hey Fred.”
“Hey John,” a shorter man said, dressed in a light jumper, no tactical gear. He looked concernedly at Rachel and Cassie, “where did these two come from?”
“Found them in one of the basements, hiding in a closet,” he explained, staring down at them, “I assume you are missing a couple?”
“Four, actually,” he said, and seemed to slump a little bit as he said it, “I’ve been trying to find Baker and let him know.”
“I haven’t been able to reach him or Daniels for the past ten minutes,” the one who had found them, John Ryan, said.
Cassie and Rachel exchanged a look, two more kids missing?
“Who are the two kids?” Rachel asked the two men bluntly.
“We aren’t sure,” said Fred in a soft voice, babying them, “a few of your friends said they saw them being taken away by one of the men, did you see anything?”
“No,” Cassie said, matching his patronizing tone with a fake, innocent voice, “we ran when we heard all the gunshots, we just wanted to get away.”
“I understand,” the man said, with a reassuring smile, “don’t worry, we’ll find your friends.”
4:03:49 P.M. Hork-Bajir ColonyToby looked over the newly revived Hork-Bajir carefully. He had been through a tough ordeal; the sensation of a yeerk dying in your head was a horrible one. Toby was glad she had never had to experience the horror of being controlled by another; she had been born a free Hork-Bajir of the valley.
“Toby,” a familiar voice called from behind her.
“Yes Ark?” she asked her friend.
“Ark find this with prisoners stuff,” Ark said, holding out a small metal device, almost like a human cellular phone.
Toby took it, and examined it carefully, “Thank you Ark, very good work.”
She did not know what the device was used for, but she could just feel it would be important. Leaving the recently freed Hork-Bajir’s side, she crossed the valley to where Ax and Tobias were talking. She could see the companionship between the two even more evidently now; separate from their human friends.
<Toby,> Tobias’ voice called in her head, when she was still very far from them.
Ax turned to see her too and said, <We must go to find the others. They have to know about the ship that is coming.>
“You can tell them about this too,” Toby said, holding up the device, she had almost reached the spot where Ax stood and Tobias perched on a low branch nearby.
<What is it?> Tobias asked, focusing intensely on the small device in Toby’s hand.
“I was hoping you would know,” Toby said, directly his question at Ax.
Ax held out his delicate Andalite hand for the device and examined it intently.
“We found it with the weapons that we took off of the scout team,” Toby explained.
<It seems as though it is a private communicator,> Ax said, his fingers plugging away rapidly at the devices small display screen. <And there is a tracking beacon.>
<Maybe it’s for the ship,> Tobias guessed, <Maybe they know where it’s going to land.>
Suddenly the device let off several high-pitched beeping sounds, Ax held it at arms length, <I believe we are receiving a communication.>
<They don’t know that we’ve captured their team,> Tobias realized, <Toby, you need to pretend to be one of them, take the call.>
Ax nodded and handed the communicator back to Toby as a voice projected out of it, “Tarim 4-4-6, why haven’t you checked in?”
“We got held up,” Toby said in Galard, looking up at them.
“Report back to the ship immediately,” the voice said authoritatively, and the connection was cut.
<The location on the device must be the ship they are talking about,> Ax suggested.
<I don’t think we have time to warn the others,> Tobias said to Ax, <we need to get there now.>
4:08:33 P.M. Biozyme Industries“Then the lights went out, and I managed to grab one of their guns. And I knocked one of them out, but the other one got shot,” Walters explained to the agent.
“You mean you shot him?” the agent corrected.
“Yes,” Walters said, squirming in his seat, “Yes, I killed him.”
This was true; he had shot the man. He had killed him. But he wasn’t being entirely truthful with the officers. He wasn’t going to tell them about the two boys that had helped him, that had trusted him. He wasn’t sure why he was protecting them, why he had helped them escape from the building, or why they even needed to escape. He simply knew, somehow, that he could trust them. They were on the right side of this, whatever this was.
He was sitting on a bench in the lobby, where the FBI had set up a sort of headquarters. He was being questioned by one of the agents about what had happened in the basement, why they had found him lying in a bloody mess with a broken hand and a dead body.
“Did they say anything about what they did with the other scientists?” the agent asked.
“You haven’t found them yet?” Walters asked, bewildered. How had he not asked about them sooner?”
“No,” the agent said, sighing, “we’ve searched nearly the entire building. We need to wait for Hazmat to get her before we can search zones three and four, there was some kind of chemical spill.”
“What?” Walters said, with a shocked expression, “Zone three and four? Are you sure?”
“Yea, why?” the agent asked, looking confused.
“There are no hazardous chemicals in those areas, I guarantee you,” he said, standing up, “that area is designed to be locked down in case of a contamination, or an attack! If my people are in the building, they would all be in there!”
“Jesus,” the agent said, then reached up to his radio, “Are you sure?” he asked Walters, pausing with one hand on the call button, then with a confident nod from Walters he said, “Agent Baker, this is Taylor, zones three and four are clear, there is no contamination, I repeat zones three and four are not contaminated.”
“This is Ryan,” came the reply, “I think Baker is off com, I’ll have Bravo check it out.”
“Copy that,” Agent Taylor said, then turned to Walters, “you need to come with me.”
He led Walters across the room to a row of computers set up on the reception desk, “Set up a line with HQ, he needs to talk to Davis.”
“Yes sir,” the man working the terminal said, looking at Dr. Walters with a curious expression as he keyed in the command, “It’s sending now.”
4:12:03 P.M. FBI Headquarters“FBI, Richards,” Richards answered, tucking the phone against his ear with his shoulder and continuing to type rapidly.
“Mr. Richards this is Agent Taylor, I have Dr. Walters here with some vital information for Mr. Davis.”
“Hang on a sec Jerry,” Richards said, finally taking his eyes off the computer, and scanned the room.
Davis was working with Dana Washington in the communications unit, “John, we’ve got something for you.”
He looked up at the sound of his name and saw Richards holding up the phone. He left Dana and started crossing the room towards him, “Those satellite images are up already?”
“No, the request is still in, this is something else,” Richards said, “apparently the scientist, Walters, has something. I’ll put it on speaker, go ahead.”
“Hello?” came Walter’s unsure voice.
“This is Director Davis, I’m the head of this branch,” Davis explained, “what have you got for us Dr. Walters?”
“I was told that you avoided zones three and four because of some kind of chemical hazard,” Walters said, trying to sound as professional as possible but knowing that his voice had been shaking ever since the terrorists had grabbed him, “but the way our building is designed makes that completely impossible.”
“Do you know where that information came from?” Richards asked.
“Sir,” Taylor’s voice came in, “I have it from Agent Baker that that information came from your office.”
Davis looked over at Richards, who exchanged his glance, they both knew what that meant. Someone in their office had provided disinformation. Someone was helping the terrorists.
“Search the area immediately!” Davis called.
“Sir I’m getting word from Agent Ryan’s team now, I can connect you,” Taylor said.
4:14:51 P.M. Biozyme Industries“The doors are jammed, we have set charges and are preparing to enter,” Ryan reported into his communications unit.
“Agent Ryan this is Davis, report in the second you know something,” a voice responded.
“Copy that sir,” he responded, then nodded to one of his team members.
“Charge in three, two, one,” at the one second mark the agent pressed a detonator and several tiny but precisely placed explosives went off a few feet away. The small team immediately rushed through the now wide open door, guns raised, ready to find the terrorists they had thought had eluded them.
Instead, what they found were several dozen men and women, all looking terrified at their abrupt and violent entry. Some had fallen and ducked for cover, others held their arms raised high, a common reaction to a man with a gun.
“Where did the men who attacked this building go?” Ryan asked the crowd at large.
“What?” several asked, looking confused and scared.
Ryan was taken aback by their lack of understanding, “This building was the victim of an attack, do you have any information on the attackers?”
“We have been here the whole time,” one of the crowd stepped forward wearily, he spoke in a thick Russian accent, “when the power went out, we lost our communication and the doors were jammed shut. We have been trapped in here for hours.”
4:17:32 P.M. Biozyme Industries“We need to do something,” Rachel hissed, punching on the seat in front of her restlessly, the kid in the seat in front of her turned around about to say something, but seeing Rachel decided against it.
“Your right, but how do we get out of here?” Cassie asked, looking down to the front of the school bus, where one of the FBI agents was lazily sitting. Their teacher had been so hysterical with trauma that they had not counted on her watching them.
“I don’t know, we could go to the back seats and…” Rachel implied, but she knew it was a bad idea.
“Too risky, someone would definitely see us,” she said, but she figured Rachel already knew that.
“Well,” Rachel said, pulling Cassie up by the arm, and saying quite simply, “we’ll just have to talk our way through it.”
She began to march them to the front of the bus where the guard was staring lazily back toward the building. Before they could reach him, however, he got a call on his radio and replied, “they found them? I’ll be right there.”
He turned to the students, just as Cassie and Rachel sidestepped into an empty bench seat, “Alright kids, if you could all just stay right here, someone will be back in just a second.”
With that, he darted out of the bus and fast-walked back into Biozyme, excited to be done baby-sitting.
"Well that was a freebie," Rachel said, then turned to the girl on the opposite bench and whispered, “Hey, Cassie and I are going to ditch out, can you cover for us?”
Cassie saw that it was Jen; she answered, “You guys are leaving? Now?”
“Yeah,” Rachel added, “we don’t want to be stuck here all day, don’t tell anyone okay?”
“Okay,” Jen said, with a concerned look on her face.
Cassie and Rachel slowly and casually moved to the front of the bus. “Where are you going?” One girl challenged them.
“We’re going to see how Ms. McKay is doing,” Cassie said, “want to come?”
“No way,” the girl said grumpily, slumping back into her seat.
As they peered out of the bus door they saw a handful of people around the entrance to the building, but nobody was paying much attention to the bus. They walked purposefully toward the building until they were out of eyeshot of the bus, and then the cut along a row of cars, staying low, heading for the forest.
“You know they’ll just tell the second someone asks about us,” Cassie said.
“Yeah, but now everyone will just think we skipped,” Rachel said, “and not that we sneaked into the woods to turn into animals and stop an alien attack we know nothing about.”
4:21:17 P.M. Biozyme Mines“This must be it,” Jake said in Ramon’s husky voice, pointing ahead as a small ray of light.
“And where is this supposed to lead?” a very sweaty and disgruntled Hondo asked. They had been climbing through the rocky underground mines for almost an hour.
“How the hell are we supposed to know?” Marco asked, doing the best to imitate a man he had only known for minutes as a torturer.
“That Walters could have been leading us into a trap!” Hondo cried out, “we could walk through there and be surrounded by cops!”
Jake turned on him, “You think I wouldn’t have taken care of that? Walters is no longer a problem. Now shut it. Let’s move.”
Jacob remained silent through the exchange, concerned about something but he didn’t know what.
Everyone was acting weird.
“These two are acting real strange,” Dominic muttered from behind him.
They finally reached the end of the passageway, there was a small tunnel in front of them. It looked like a supply line, barely big enough for a man, if at all.
Marco looked over at Jake, “Give me a boost?”
<You’re taller now, you should give me a boost,> Jake reminded him in private thought-speak.
<I know,> Marco responded, <I just wanted to hear you say it. Alright, need a boost midget?>
Marco put his hands down around his knees and lifted one of Jakes feet until he found a hold in the rocks and pulled himself out of the hole, “We’re clear.”
Marco looked smugly over at Hondo, “See?”
Hondo just snarled and glared at him as he moved forward to climb through.
4:24:06 P.M. FBI HeadquartersRichards walked swiftly across the room, studying Dana carefully as he approached her. She seemed like someone that could be trusted. She had been with the Bureau almost as long as he had, and there had never been a problem with her. When Davis had been brought in as director, she had been one of the people that had strongly expressed to Richards that he should have gotten the position. She was loyal to him.
“Hey Dana, I need you to do something for me,” he said, leaning over her desk to speak quietly, “I need you to find a call made to Agent Baker from someone in this office.”
“Sure,” she said simply, “do you know when it was?”
“Some time in the last hour and a half,” he said, watching as she brought up the search, “and keep this to yourself.”
“Sure, what’s going on?” she asked, looking up at him.
“We think that there may be someone in the office who helped Garza’s team escape,” he said, looking around again to make sure no one was listening. He saw Davis walking towards them.
“Do we have anything?” he asked, looking between Dana and Richards.
“No,” Richards said, “none of the scientists know anything. The field teams are still sweeping the area but they don’t think they’ll find anything.”
“Alright,” Davis said absentmindedly, he seemed to be deep in thought about something, “I need to talk to you for a second.”
Davis led Richards a few feet away, into a more secluded corner, and spoke in a low voice, “Okay, we both know that something is going on here.”
“Yeah,” Richards responded grimly, “I don’t know how, but they definitely got to someone in the office.”
“Until we know who to trust, this stays between the two of us,” Davis said, keeping his voice low, “I’ll work up everything I can by myself, I want you to keep an eye on everyone down here.”
“You don’t think I’d be more help searching for the mole?”
“No, I need you down here,” Davis said authoritatively, “you haven’t told anyone about the leak yet have you?”
Richards considered telling him about Dana, Davis wouldn’t really have an issue bringing her into the loop. But he knew Davis didn’t trust her like he did, “No.”
“Good, keep it that way,” he said with finality, and turned away back towards his office.
“Ted,” Dana called, walking over to him, “I found the call.”
“And?” he asked hopefully, “can you tell who it is?”
“It’s been scrambled,” she said, “it’ll take at least twenty minutes to get it clear enough to run a voice check.”
“Alright,” Richards said, looking back towards Davis’ office. If he was going to bring this to him, now would be a good time, “once you have something, bring it straight to me.”
4:28:56 P.M. ForestTobias caught a thermal and soared upward, getting all the height he could to drop into another steady dive. Ax in his northern harrier morph was a few hundred feet to his right, a little lower in the sky. They were both scanning the forest below, looking for any sign of the ship. They knew this would be difficult, as the ship was sure to be cloaked, but Tobias knew what to look for.
Toby and a small team of Hork-Bajir were following in the trees below, and doing a reasonable job of keeping up. Tobias knew that had he been going as fast as he could he would have easily lost them, but he was always impressed at how well they moved through the forest. There was a certain grace to it, he thought, as he watched one of them far below, reach out, catch a branch and immediately swing to land on another tree. Their movements were fluid and deliberate, a race bred to move through the trees.
Tobias dropped from the thermal and into a dive down towards the tree line, aiming to intercept with Toby, <How are we doing?>
“The locator says 200 feet straight ahead,” Toby called up to him, digging his knee spikes into the bark as he checked the device, which had been strapped to his arm.
Tobias used the momentum from the dive to rise back into the air. He focused on the spot 200 feet away. There was a small clearing where, yesterday, there hadn’t been one.
<There’s definitely something there,> he said to Ax, and worked to get back up to his height.
They picked up speed, pulling away from Toby and his team. Tobias reached the right altitude and aimed himself for the newly made clearing. He was faster than Ax, and had reached the spot before him, perching in a tree with a good view.
He saw that a few dozen trees had been merely blasted away, burnt stumps and charred earth surrounded the ground where a thick forest had once been. In the middle of the desolate clearing sat a bug fighter. The high sun reflected off its black, uncloaked hull. They had found the ship.
4:32:35 P.M. Biozyme IndustriesDr. Walters walked through the room, unsure of what he was looking for. He had been paranoid ever since finding out that the FBI had been given false information from one of their own. He didn’t feel like he could trust anyone. All of the other scientists had been in the lockdown area, and were now being checked out by the FBI teams. He had to be in charge of the building while they weren't able to. He had been willing to sit on the side and trust that the FBI would handle the matter, but he knew now that he couldn't do that.
He knew that he couldn't do nothing, but he still had no clue what to do.
He crossed through the lockdown area, where his people had gone for protection from the attack. Then he saw something unusual, a small rug, which were usually found in the offices, had been placed in the corner of the carpeted floor. It wasn’t exactly a problem, but it just seemed out of place. He poked his head in the office that adjoined with the main room and saw that it was missing its rug.
Walters looked around the room, there were a few agents lazily searching the area, doubting they would find anything. No one was paying attention to Walters. He knelt down and lifted up a portion of the rug. There was nothing immediately strange about the carpet underneath, he had expected maybe someone was sloppily covering up a stain. But he noticed that there were small creases spaced out underneath the rug, as though something very heavy had sat here for a while and left an indentation in the carpet.
Somebody probably just moved some furniture, Walters thought, getting to his feet and feeling foolish.
Then he noticed a small grey stain in the corner, raised off the carpet slightly. It looked like thick sludge, as if someone had melted lead and a few drops had tipped out of the bowl. His scientific curiosity took over and he scrambled to his feet to find a container. He moved into the next room, not wanting to tell the FBI about his discovery. It was probably nothing anyway.
Two doors away was a supply closet, and he slowly entered. He found a Petri dish and a precise knife to scrape off a sample, and took them back into the main room.
“What the hell is he doing in here?” a voice called from the lockdown entrance. Everyone’s heads turned toward Walters.
“Baker, sir,” one of the agents doing the search said awkwardly, “he’s the scientist, the one they found in the basement.”
“I don’t give a damn who he is,” Baker said, looking at Walters, “this area is locked down, get him out of here.”
4:36:22 P.M. Forest“What the hell are we doing now?” Hondo asked angrily.
“We’re trying to avoid arrest,” Marco snapped, then added to Jake in private thought-speak, <What are we doing man?>
<To be honest I was hoping they would have said something useful by now,> Jake admitted lamely, <we need to sort of steer the conversation in that direction.>
<Okay fearless leader,> Marco said, <steer away.>
“We need to get away and get prepared for the next job,” Jake said, taking a risk.
“We need Tar for that job,” Dominic said.
“I know,” Jake lied, “so let’s chill out for a second, and then we’ll go get it.”
“It?” Hondo snapped, “It? Tar is a guy! What the hell is going on?”
Hondo and Dominic immediately swung their guns up and pointed them at Jake and Marco. Jacob hesitated for a second, silent in the background behind them, and then drew his gun too.
“He meant ‘it’ in the Latin form?” Marco suggested.
“Shut the hell up,” Dominic yelled, “who the hell are you?”
“Okay listen, just calm down,” Jake said, trying to maintain an even tone.
“Let’s just shoot these two,” Hondo said, pulling back the hammer of his rifle in classic movie fashion. It did as good a job of intimidating in real life as it did in the movies.
Without warning, a full-grown wolf had sprung out of the bushes and pounced on Hondo. Jake and Marco dove out of the way, as he shot wildly into the air, falling to the ground with the weight of the wolf on top of him. Dominic raised his gun and took aim at the wolf, but before he could do anything, a flash of brown shot from the sky. Its tough to appreciate just how enormous a Bald Eagle is until one is clawing at your face, flapping its six foot long wings to keep aloft.
<Hey boys,> Rachel said ****ily, <looked like you could use some help.>
“How do you know that’s not us you’re clawing?” Marco shouted as Cassie landed a paw to the side of Hondo’s head, and his screaming subsided.
Jacob was staring from the wolf to the eagle in complete shock, frozen to the spot. Jake circled the tiny battle, heading for Jacob, who still had his gun raised. He had finally gained some control over himself and decided to raise his gun at the wolf. Before he managed to take the shot, Jake was on him, grabbing the gun with one of Raul’s large hands, and sending Jacob flying with one of his shoulders. His head hit a rock and rebounded onto the rough forest floor, leaving him out cold.
<Like a wolf and an eagle couldn’t overhear a conversation,> Cassie said, <especially when you get them so worked up by the time we get here.>
Marco went around and checked the man Rachel had clawed to the ground, “he’s alive; he’s passed out though. Wow, brutal.”
“Thanks guys, but how did you find us?” Jake asked, and began morphing out of Raul’s body.
<We’ll have to explain that one later,> Rachel said, <and so will you guys.>
<We found out about another attack,> Cassie explained, she too was demorphing, <we should find Tobias and Ax.>
4:44:39 P.M. FBI Headquarters“Sir,” Richards called, flagging down Davis as he moved through the office, “did you have any luck finding the mole?”
“No,” Davis said, sounding frustrated at the fact, “any luck tracking High Dawn?”
“Nothing,” Richards said, sounding more disappointed in himself than frustrated, “Baker checked in a few minutes ago. His team has been searching one of the basements, they weren’t able to get a signal.”
“Did he say anything about the order someone gave him?”
“I didn’t speak to him personally,” Richards said, “and I haven’t been able to reach him since.”
Davis’ pocket let out a vibrating noise and he pulled out his cell phone, “Keep trying,” he said, and continued across the office, pulling open his phone.
“Yes?” he asked.
He looked around to make sure he was out of earshot of Richards and the others, “Are you sure? How?”
“Damnit. No, it must have been Ted Richards.”
“Yes I understand, I’ll take care of it.”
“Ted, I’ve unscrambled that call,” Dana said, nudging Richards back into focus. He had been staring across the room at Davis.
“Play it.”
“Baker, its Davis,” the recording buzzed, “Keep your men clear of zone’s three and four. There are some hazardous chemicals; we’ll have to let hazmat take care of.”
“Jesus,” Richards gasped, staring at the screen, “Davis is the mole?”
Dana looked up with a similar expression of disbelief and saw Richards’ confusion turn into shock.
“He’s gone!” Richards said, looking up at the spot where Davis had been. He picked up the phone and keyed the security number, “This is Ted Richards, I need an immediate lockdown of this building. Find Director Davis and put him into custody immediately!”
Davis rushed down the empty hallway, trying to look casual and resisting the urge to break into a run. He was the director, there was no reason for anyone to question him. Just walk out calmly. As he rounded the corner he saw the guard at the entrance hanging up the phone and a loud beeping filled the air over his head. The alarms had been activated! They had already put out an arrest issue for him.
“Sir,” the guard said, moving from behind the desk as Davis approached, “I can not allow you to leave, please put your hands behind your head-“
“Calm down Tony,” Davis said to the guard, slowing down but still moving closer to him, “what’s going on?”
“Stop there sir!” Tony said, raising his voice a little more and pulling out his gun.
Before he could raise it to aim at Davis, he had rushed forward and grabbed the guards gun arm with one hand. Forcing it to the side he landed an upward blow to the guards nose, and felt the crack. Davis slammed the hand holding the gun against the desk counter and it went flying across the floor. Using both hands he drove Tony forward and slammed him against the wall, knocking him unconscious.
Darting quickly over to where the gun had fallen, he checked the magazine and gripped it comfortably in his left hand. With his right, he pulled out his key card and swiped it to open the door. An error message blinked back in his face from the display. He punched in an override code and the error message continued to blink furiously. Thinking quickly, he planned out a new route and doubled back down the hallway, desperate to escape.
4:52:22 P.M. Forest<I am not entirely sure that this idea will work,> Ax said, marching in step with the others.
<They called us,> Tobias said, <they expect a group of Hork-Bajir to be coming back right?>
<But what happens when they realize that we are a different group of Hork-Bajir?> Ax said.
“Tarim 4-4-6 reporting,” Toby said into the communicator, playing the part of a yeerk struggling with the difficult Hork-Bajir speech.
“Opening hatch,” came the reply in the same broken Hork-Bajir speech.
Ax looked down at the numerous sets of razor sharp blades coming out of his Hork-Bajir body, readying himself to use them. They didn’t quite have the speed or precision of his tail, but they were still formidable weapons. A small hatch lowered at the bottom of the ship and a Hork-Bajir walked out. He took one look around at the small group of Toby’s and immediately knew he had been tricked.
“Gafrash!” he shouted back into the fighter, but two Hork-Bajir were already on top of him, slicing at his arms and legs.
Ax rushed past them, into the ship. He knew he would have to get to the other passengers before any message could be sent. A taxxon slithered toward him and he downed it with a single slice of his wrist. Messy, but effective. Directly ahead, a second Hork-Bajir was entering in a communication code, ready to transmit. With no time for caution, Ax bull rushed him and slammed him into the computer. The Hork-Bajir reared his legs back and kicked Ax in the chest, sending him flying back. He turned back to the computer to finish the command. Ax managed to stay on his feet and lunged back, slicing at the pilot’s arm with one blade, and swinging him around with the other. The Hork-Bajir made another swing at him, but Ax was ready and dodged it, using the momentum to slam him against the wall of the fighter. He duck a forearm into his back, pinning him into place. His elbow blades were inches from the spine.
<Let him go man,> Tobias said, rushing forward.
Ax did not understand what he meant but backed off the controller anyway. Then he saw the Hork-Bajir outside, he had been wounded severely by Toby and his team, but he was alive. They intended to bring both of these Hork-Bajir back with them, to be tied up with the others in the hut. Ax hadn’t intended to kill him, but he understood the concern the free Hork-Bajir must have shown, and respected Tobias for electing to be the one to say something.
<Did they manage to get any messages out?> Tobias asked.
<It does not appear so,> Ax said, turning toward the computer. He demorphed as he approached it, wanting his nimble Andalite fingers to work the keys, <This fighter would have been too small to carry the group that we captured. It must have another purpose.>
“Does it say what that purpose is?” Toby asked, joining Ax and Tobias in front of the console.
<I will try to find out,> Ax said as his fingers had shrunk and multiplied to their normal form. He felt two pops as his stalk eyes erupted from his head, and his vision doubled. He typed quickly at the keyboard, scanning for all recent commands, <This bug fighter has a modified data sensor.>
<Meaning what?> Tobias asked.
<It has been modified to read and transmit a large amount of energy readings,> he explained, <I’ll try to access the program.>
Suddenly an array of data flooded the screen, temperature, wind speed, sounds, and a dozen other readings. In the center, and the one that seemed most important, was an energy reading, that was steadily increasing.
<This reading indicates another ship, one of a far greater mass and energy potential than this one,> Ax said, and then he looked concerned, <the energy its expending is higher than any ship would need to leave earth atmosphere, or even enter Z-space.>
<What does that mean Ax?> Tobias asked, reading his concerned face.
<It must be preparing to fire some kind of weapon,> Ax said, trying to explain it, <some kind of enormous energy bomb.>
4:58:37 P.M. FBI HeadquartersDavis raced down another hallway, on a lower level now. He had managed to avoid detection so far, but they had to be closing in on him. Finally, he found the exit he had been looking for; an old emergency exit in a blocked off portion of the lower level. He reached out and put his weight into it. The door swung a few inches and then stopped as Davis heard the clatter of a chain on the other side.
The door opening would have surely set off another alarm. He had to hurry. With one foot holding the door open as far as the chain would allow, he leveled the gun at the swinging metal links.
BAM BAM
He felt the chain give way and the door swing open.
“Freeze! Right there!” came a shout from behind him, he turned to see three armed guards, all with their guns drawn and leveled at his chest.
“Place the gun on the ground now!” one of them ordered.
Having no choice but to comply, he dropped the gun to the ground, and kicked it over to them. One of the others rushed over to him and forced him to the ground, pulling a set of handcuffs from a case on his belt. Davis felt the cold concrete pressing against his face as he heard the click of the cuffs enclosing his wrists.
5:00:00 P.M.
