The Attack by K.A. Applegate

Author:K.A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

Now the Howlers tried their ultimate weapon. The howl was earsplitting. The walls around Erek began to shiver and crack. Guide fell to the ground, rolling in agony.

Ax’s eyes were bleeding, even in midmorph. But the rest of us were more fly than human, and the waves of vibration from the Howlers did not cause us pain. Not pain, just an overwhelming instinct to fly. Vibration could be sound or it could be movement. The fly brains felt the howl as sudden, massive, threatening movements from every direction at once.

Still seven or eight pounds, with a twisting, morphing human mouth, I was beating my growing wings frantically, kicking in panic, trying to fly.

“Fight me, Chee,” the Howler taunted, when he realized his howl would not shake Erek’s grip.

I was shocked to recognize the language. He was speaking English! Crayak must have programmed it into this bunch of Howlers. Programmed them to understand our language and to be able to taunt and question us, if necessary.

Erek ignored him. The Howlers began to fire Dracon beams. Not at Erek. They must have known from their collective memory that Chee cannot be easily destroyed by beam weapons.

Instead, they were using the Dracon beams to slice around Erek’s handholds.

We had all morphed. All panicked, but all morphed. Except Ax, who was still partly Andalite. And Guide, who was sitting in a corner now, gazing raptly at the madness, creating valuable memories for later sale.

Suddenly, Erek’s handhold was gone, burned away. The Howlers pushed past him, contemptuous. They knew he could not fight. But they found nothing. Nothing that looked like the creatures one of them had fought on the stairs.

Nothing except a weak, defenseless Ax, still morphing. A hideously misshapen, melting, twisting monstrosity.

The Howlers piled into the room. With my compound eyes they seemed to be made of glowing purple and blue with pulsating black veins. The facets in my fun-house-mirror eyes broke them into pieces. They were everywhere around me as I flew unnoticed.

“Target?” one Howler asked another. This second Howler was slightly larger and carrying even more weapons.

“Yes. Kill it!” the leader bellowed in rage.

Seven flechette guns rose and took aim at Ax. He had no chance. None.

Erek leaped to put himself between the guns and Ax, but the Howlers calmly blocked his path. And Erek’s programming would not allow him to shove them aside.

In a split second, Ax would be annihilated.

<Crayak is a huge, walking, talking pimple,> a thought-speak voice said.

Marco!

The Howlers’ heads snapped around, left, right, their bodies swiveling as they searched for the one who taunted them. They aimed at Guide, who was crawling out through the hole they’d burned.

<Not me! Not me! I’m just an Iskoort trader! And by the way, I’d love to buy your memories of all this!>

<And Howlers are the cowards of the galaxy. Brainless, ugly, bad-smelling, sniveling, gutless worms,> Marco added.

“Forget it,” the leader ordered. “Voices are meaningless.”

I zipped through the air, flying in the wild, wobbly fly way. I aimed for the face of the Howler leader.

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