One group was heading for the big circular area that held what looked like the nastiest sea serpents, the boiling around ones. And, once there, they started slamming themselves against the Habitrail walls. This boded. But not as much as what the second group was doing. Because the second group was all about heading right for us.
They weren’t as fast as Christopher, thankfully, but they were still going a lot faster than the Slowest Elevator Platform in the World that we were on. Now that I could see what really was there, the cavern wasn’t nearly as gigantic as it had seemed on the way down. No, the elevator platforms were just unbelievably slow. Since there was no one to complain to about this huge design flaw, though, refrained from pointing it out.
Besides, I was far too busy huddling next to Jeff and Christopher, while watching the Habitrail From Hell become the Pieces of Random Junk and Debris Floating In Scary Black Water, and hoping that the sea serpents didn’t find our part of the Habitrail any time soon.
No sooner asked for than denied. Watched as a particularly nasty looking sea serpent began to follow the path we’d taken to get here, water rushing along with it to fill what was left of the Habitrail tubes. Looked up. We were still far away from the top. Thankfully, all the other platforms seemed to have made it to the surface with their passengers, because I could see many of them lowering without anyone still along for the ride.
“How much longer to get up, do you figure?” Jeff asked tightly.
“Too long,” Christopher replied. “These go up faster than they go down, for whatever reason, but that thing’s going to find us before we’re close enough to the top to jump for it.”
Water was coming in from pretty much all sides. The tube we were in was still intact, but the lower part started to fill up. And that meant the platform began to slow down, which, considering how slowly it was going already, should have been impossible, but wasn’t.
My music changed to “Smasher/Destroyer” by Fear Factory. “Guys, hang on.”
Jeff grabbed my hand and Christopher’s, Christopher grabbed my free hand. Just in time. The sea serpent—helped by water rushing into this area—sailed straight up the tube and slammed its face into the bottom of the platform.
The good part was that we went sailing upward at a much faster rate than the platform had probably ever gone in its entire existence. We flew out into the sunlight and, due to the speed the sea serpent had been going and the force of the hit, we went pretty high up into the air—a hundred feet high if we were a foot sort of high.
Got a good view of the planet. There was a lot of grass here, but there were other things, too, all manner of flora and fauna. And everything that was part of the planet was black. Not a dead black, though. This black looked alive, more alive and more real than any of the elephants, horses, or squirrels did.
Would have wondered how Dopey had managed to make this planet look bright green even from space, but the bad part was that the sea serpent pushed with its jaws at the last moment and sent the platform spinning, meaning we were now tumbling in the air with nothing to stand on or protect us in any way.
The worse part was that Gravity was calling, and it wanted its rules back.
But the very worst part was that, as I spun over and around, my purse opened and SuperBun flew out of it. Straight for the opened jaws of the sea serpent.
CHAPTER 40
“NO!” I SCREAMED, as SuperBun let loose with a rabbit’s shriek of terror. It was the first sound I’d heard him make and it was looking like it would be the last, too.
But then there was another shriek. And this wasn’t one of fear. Or being made by a rabbit. This shriek was the shriek of a pissed-off protector about to kick butt.
Bruno and Ginger appeared in the air near SuperBun. Bruno had Ginger in his claws just like they’d done on Beta Eight and during Operation Epidemic. She was snarling and had all her claws out, on all four paws.
Bruno dropped Ginger into the sea serpent’s open maw and caught SuperBun in the next moment. The sea serpent’s jaws snapped shut, just missing Bruno and SuperBun.
Wasn’t sure if this was an improvement—losing SuperBun wasn’t what I wanted, but losing Ginger was just as bad. Worse, because she’d been with us longer.
Poofs poured out of my purse, but they did so intentionally. They all went large and hit the ground first, so that Jeff, Christopher, and I landed on a Poof Stunt Airbag.
As I slid down to the ground, watched the sea serpent. It was still relatively straight in the air and starting to go straight down, back into the tube and the black water. With my pet, the pet who had insisted on leaving her home planet to come with me, inside of it.
Started to run toward the monster. Had no idea what I was going to do, but it wasn’t getting to have Ginger. Even if she was already dead she was still coming home with me. My music changed to “Just Stop” by Disturbed, but I wasn’t listening. I was getting Ginger, period.
Jeff tackled me. “Stop, Kitty!” We rolled on the ground, him shielding me with his body. Then he got us up onto our feet and dragged me back to the Poofs. “I can feel again, baby. It’s okay—”
He was interrupted by a new shriek, this one from the sea serpent. It was a loud, horrific sound, and it also sounded like a death scream. One could but hope.
As we watched, it slivered, just like something was slicing it from the inside. An ocellar with claws sharp enough to cut through body armor, perhaps.
The sea serpent turned into sushi in less time than it took for it to fall to the ground. Bruno swooped over, dropped SuperBun into my arms, then flew back toward the Sea Serpent Sushi. He reached it just as Ginger sliced through the tail end and he caught her before she fell into the hole.
Bruno booked it back to us, dropped Ginger into Jeff’s arms, then landed in Christopher’s. Christopher hugged him, which was kind of shocking—Christopher and the Peregrines rarely got along all that well. “This is one hell of a bird,” Christopher said. Bruno cawed appreciatively.
“And this remains the greatest cat in the galaxy,” Jeff said as he pulled out the wipes that all A-Cs carried in case an imageer or empath touched something that made them feel beyond icky and used them to wipe Ginger down. Ginger purred her appreciation.
“You guys are the most amazing animals in the galaxy!” Cuddled SuperBun, who was shivering uncontrollably, while I gave Bruno a serious scritchy-scratch between his wings and, once her face was cleaned off, Ginger a lot of kisses. Bruno got some, too. As did SuperBun, who was starting to recover but shared that he never wanted to do that ever again. Ginger and Bruno, on the other hand, were prepared to take on all sea serpent comers.
Then it was time to thank and pet all the Poofs. This took a while. All of Iron Maiden’s “The Thin Line Between Love And Hate,” which was a pretty long song.