Fight Shark

He was too excited by the hunt to notice me. Until it was too late. With every bit of speed and power I could get from my tail, I rammed the tiger shark in his gill slits.

WHOOOOMP!

It was like hitting a brick wall. My beak was strong, but the shark was made of steel or something.

I fell back, dazed. But as I tried to collect myself I saw that a trail of blood was billowing from the shark's gills.

I swam beneath him, and then I saw the huge shape of the whale. He was a humpback, more than forty feet long. Each of his long, barnacle-encrusted flukes was bigger than me.

He was trying to surface to breathe, but sharks were attacking, tearing at the soft, vulnerable flesh of his mouth.

It made me angry. Very angry.

Suddenly, from the murky depths, Jake and Rachel zoomed upward, like missiles aimed at the sharks.

WHOOMP! Rachel hit her target.

Jake's shark twisted just in time. Jake scraped across the shark's sandpaper skin, and before he could get clear, the shark was after him.

<Jake! He's on your tail!>

<I got him!>

<Look out! Comming up on your left, Marco!>

They were as fast as we were, as maneuverable as we were, and the sharks had one terrifying advantage - they did not know fear.

<He's on me! He's on me!>

<Aaaaarrrrggghh!>

<Marco!>

<I can't see! Where is he?>

<Cassie! Below you, lookout! Look out!>

It was no longer a game. I had gone rushing into a fight full of confidence and determined to help the whale. But now I was in a war. The sharks were killing machines. They seemed to be nothing but armored skin and razor-sharp fins and wide jaws with row after row of serrated teeth.

The water was boiling with twisting, turning, speeding sharks and us dolphins, locked in a high-speed battle to the death.

It suddenly occurred to me that we might lose. We might be killed.

I might be killed.

The water was dark with blood, still billowing from the shark I had hammered.

Suddenly two of the sharks turned away. They just turned and swam away. At first, I didn't know why.

Then I saw that they were following the shark I had wounded.

They were following the trail of blood.

They were at the limits of my sight when they struck. They ripped into the injured shark with wild, uncontrolled fury.

The last shark turned from the battle and went after them. Robbed of his meal of whale meat, he would feast on his brother instead.

<Everyone okay?> Jake asked.

<I have some cuts, but I'm okay,> I said.

<Same here,> Rachel said. She sounded tired. I guess I did, too. I felt exhausted and drained. The fight had probably only lasted two minutes from beginning to end. But it had been a long two minutes.

<Marco?>

<I . . .I think I'm hurt,> he said.

I looked for him. He was drifting in the water, almost motionless, twenty yards away. We all swam over, crowding around him.

Then I saw the wound. I think I would have screamed, if I could have. His tail had almost been bitten off. It was hanging by a few jagged threads. It was useless.

We were miles out in the ocean. And Marco could not hope to swim back.