B25C11/12 - Fall

The outer hull door began to slide. It opened onto empty whiteness.

<Jake! Cassie! Everyone! Door open! Bail!> I yelled.

The freezing mist was swirling around the floor now, forcing the Visser to back up. But that didn't mean he wouldn't send his troops into it.

<After them! After them!>

Hork-Bajir plowed through the mist and found themselves on frozen feet. Feet with toes that broke off, with ankles that snapped.

Jake coiled his tiger muscles and took the mist at a leap. Tobias was first out the door. Cassie lay unconscious in a heap, with mist advancing on her.

Without hesitation, Rachel walked into the mist and lifted Cassie's wolf body with her teeth. The grizzly's left foot stayed where it had frozen. Rachel staggered to the door on a stump.

One by one, we tumbled out of the door and into emptiness.

(...)

We landed about twenty feet below in a pile of fur, claws, wings, and hooves. I hit hard, facedown. I was under hundreds of pounds of morphed humans and one alien.

There was a huge whoosh. The Blade ship, following Visser Three's orders and going for altitude. Bad timing. I could practically hear him screaming, <No, no! Down! Down!>

I scratched at the ground and tried to pull myself out of the squirming pile. But the ground was slippery.

Ice. I could feel the black, leathery skin on my chest burning against it.

Just a few inches from my face, I could see Jake's claws scraping at the ice.

I tried to push away, to get out from under the grizzly bear lying over me. But not even my strength could move Rachel till she rolled away. I tried to stand up.

I felt my skin tearing as I pulled away from the ice.

<Ow ow ow ow!> I screamed.

But then I saw Rachel's foot. Or at least the stump where the foot had been. She was demorphing as fast as she could. Grizzlies can take a lot of pain. But nothing likes losing an entire foot.

Cassie was reviving, turning her wolf snout back and forth like a person having a bad dream. Then, <Yah! Oh! Oh, man! Wh-where are we?>

<Someplace cold,> I said. <Really cold. You better demorph and remorph, fast!> I could see the Blade ship. It had shot into the air, up through the clouds, and was still hauling away. But it would be back.

<Marco's right,> Jake said. <Jeez! Is it cold enough?>

My arms were already starting to lose their mobility. It was intensely, horribly cold. The still-warm blood on my chest gave off a steamy mist in the frosty air.

I was a jungle creature. Big and furry, but not really adapted for anything less than hot and sticky. And we were a long way from hot and sticky.