The Unexpected by K. A. Applegate

Author:K. A. Applegate [Applegate, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 0439115183
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 2000-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The ground trembled. Another Dracon blast.

And another.

I couldn't hear them. Fleas don't have ears. But I sensed each tremor with every molecule of my body. Grains of sand the size of garbage trucks shifted around me.

But the couldn't hurt me. Unless the Yeerks fired directly on top of me, I was safe.

For two hours anyway.

I burrowed deeper into the sand. The flea's instincts weren't hard to control. Basically it has only two: Find blood. Eat. And once it figured out there wasn't any blood in this little sandpile, the flea brain was pretty quiet.

My own brain, however, was on overload.

I'd been running and running and fighting and running and mostly screwing things up since . . .

Since when? How long had it been since I'd casually drifted above the airport, watching for a top-secret shipment? Years, it seemed. Another lifetime. Somebody else's lifetime.

But it couldn't have been more than a few hours. Twelve maybe? Fourteen? Fourteen horrible hours?

Horrible. Right.

Horrible is getting to school and finding out you left your homework on the bus, your boyfriend is dumping you, and your socks don't match. This was beyond horrible. This was . . .

There wasn't even a word for it.

An image pushed itself into my head. Two Hork-Bajir, staring at me in helpless terror as they tumbled backward from the cargo hold. Their screams echoed through my brain.

They didn't deserve it. Yeah, Hork-Bajir look like death on two legs, but without a Yeerk in their heads, they're a simple species, innocent and trusting. And those blades? To a Hork-Bajir, a free Hork-Bajir, they serve one purpose: to strip bark from trees. For food. Hork-Bajir are vegetarians. Gentle, nature-loving vegetarians.

And I'd killed four of them in less than a day.

The two in the cabin of the plane had been an accident. I hadn't actually pulled the trigger on the first one, and I'd only meant to stun the second. Still, if I hadn't been there, they'd be alive. And what about the two Hork-Bajir in the cargo hold? Not an accident. I had meant to kill them, and I did.

Just like I'd meant to kill the Taxxon.

I could almost hear Rachel: "Puh-leaze, Cassie. Taxxons are willing Controllers and pure cannibals. That pilot would've gobbled up his own splattered guts if he'd had a mouth left to do it with. Don't waste your sympathy. Or your guilt. Somebody had to die, you or him, and you chose him. End of story."

Yeah, the end of a story that shouldn't have started.

If I'd made even one good decision, one smart move, in the last twelve or fourteen or however many hours, none of this would have happened.

Bald Spot wouldn't have gone nuts. The Marines wouldn't have started shooting. I would have bailed when Jake gave orders to abort the mission. And I wouldn't have fallen unconscious in the cargo hold of a plane, left with no choice but to kill or be killed.

I'm not trying to be some kind of martyr, or say that I'm always a screwup.

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