Most Omnipotent Leader! Catastrophe has stuck our ranks! The alien is full of bizarre lightless caverns and caustic fluids! Two of the weaker males have succumbed! But even though some of us are blinded, we are the boldest of the bold! We will march forward to the beating organ, stop it, and embark on our plan to conquer the universe!
— From the log of the Helmacron Females
I couldn’t see my friends by the time they arrived. The acid had splashed into my eyes, eaten away at the vulnerable eyeball, painfully blinding me. But I heard a clumsy flap, flap way overhead. Wings. Bat wings. The perfect morph for “seeing” in the dark.
I shouted to them.
Tseeew!
Tseeew!
Cassie complained.
I demanded.
Cassie reported.
Great. That meant I had to morph a bird or bat. That meant passing through my human form — and hoping I wasn’t burned alive in the process.
I braced myself for a new phase of pain.
Tobias said in private thought-speak.
I began to shrink. My trunk collapsed into my face with shocking, slamming force. I fought to keep my half-formed nose and mouth up in the air.
Vaguely, I was aware of the sound of Dracon beam blasts and my friends’ thought-speak voices. I tried to focus on them. Anything to distract me from the blistering agony.