GAME OVER
BY DAVID ANAKIN
DISCLAIMER: The Animorphs belong to Scholastic books and K.A. Applegate.
Aximili-Isthill-Esgarrouth sat alone in Jake's living room watching TV. He was alone for a reason. Jake and the others were dead. It was necessary for them to be small animals for this mission. They had attacked a group of Controllers, but there were just too many and they were well armed. During the fighting Ax lost sight of all but two of his friends, Rachel and Marco. They had morphed into a wolf and an eagle. They were badly injured so Ax carried them away from the battle. Their injuries were so bad neither of them had the strength to morph into human form. After they died, Ax buried them but in the time it took to dig the graves, he had forgotten who was who. There was a phase Jake taught him and he said it over the unmarked graves. I'm sorry. Then he went to Jake's house, because he didn't know where else to go. He asked Jake's Mother if he could wait for him and she said yes. That was an hour and a half ago. If he didn't morph soon he'd be human for the rest of his life. It took him twenty minutes to decide, He morphed into a hawk and flew out the open window. He'd been told it was rude to leave without saying goodbye, but he had said good-bye to enough people today.
He had no destination in mind, but somehow ended up at he mall. He spent the rest of the day there, going in the bathroom every two hours to change his appearance. He continued walking from shop to shop. When the mall closed he became insects or mice to avoid the night watchmen. He was reliving the times he and his friends spent there. Happy times. The next morning he resumed human form and went to the Arcade again. This was the boys' favorite place. He didn't have any money so he just watched the kids play. The lights and sounds were a welcome distraction form the gloom he was feeling. That's when he saw it. An image on a video game screen just as the words GAME OVER appeared. If Ax were human and religious he would have called it a message from God. But since he was neither of those things, he called it what Marco would have called it. Just dumb luck. A plan quickly developed in his mind's eye. It will take time and careful planning, but it could work. He had nothing to lose.
His first step was the public library, he needed information. Being a superior form of life had it's advantages, one of those was being able to hack into the main frame computer of a near by Air Force base. What he had to do next took longer. He had to log off and morph into a fly when the library closed so he could stay inside. When the last employee left, he became human again and finished his work. There were plants hanging inside for when he got hungry. Luckily, there were no night guards here. By midnight he was in the personnel files and had found the name he was looking for. One Major Anthony M. Hawke. Ax liked that name; it made him think of Tobias. He memorized Hawke's file then covered up everything he did here tonight. Morphing into a fly he got out of the library, then changed into a falcon and made his way in Hawke's apartment.
The Major lived on the top floor of an apartment building. Ax's luck was holding, Hawke wasn't entertaining tonight, and all his lights were out. Ax morphed into human when he got inside the apartment and tried to catch the other man by surprise. Hawke turned out to be stronger than he thought and during the struggle he broke the man's neck. Ax stared at the body for a long time. This was the first time he'd ever killed a non-Controller. More blood on my hands, he thought. Ax forced himself not to think about what he'd done. He had a mission to complete. The lives of his friends and this man would not be in vain. Ax rested for a while then searched the apartment for more personal information. Apparently, Hawke was a loner, family on the other side of the country, few friends. And even they didn't know him very well. Perfect! The fewer people who knew him the easier it would be for Ax to impersonate him. The next morning. Ax begin his first day as Major Anthony Hawke.
Over the next three months Ax went about the business of a major in the US Air Force. Then there was his own "Project" as he called it. There was no danger of anyone finding a paper trail, because Ax was keeping everything in his head. There were many times when Ax was almost trapped in his new human body, but he was able to find time alone. Sometimes with just seconds to spare. When he returned, he would say it was something he ate. Soon got he attention of the base doctor. This was only a manor inconvenience, as Ax was easily able to fool the test. The condition he gave himself wasn't bad enough to be relived of duty, but he was given some pills to take. Ax flushed them down the toilet instead. He also kept an eye on Yeerk activity, this wasn't easy; but he knew what to look for. Now that they didn't have the Animorphs to deal with, they were getting bold. That angered Ax, and made him work that much harder. He still took out Controllers whenever he could, but his main objective was "The Project".
In the early morning hours, using forged orders, Ax prepared for his final mission. He watched as two men loaded a 3 Ft by 3Ft box into the back of a truck. When it was loaded, they got in themselves. A third person was waiting in the driver's seat. Ax was hoping to got his device out by himself, but there was no way he could get past the main gate without some guards, ever with the orders he'd made for himself. Ax had assumed the body of Major Hawke a few minutes before coming out, so he had plenty of time to get to his destination. The main Yeerk pool. They arrived just after sunrise, so there were no Controller guards outside. Ax ordered the guards to stand in line foe additional orders. In a swift move, he pulled out a pistol with a silencer attached and shot each one of them. They didn't have time to react and went down quietly. Even more blood on my hands, he thought. But it was necessary; he knew they wouldn't have left, even if ordered. They were soldiers; they wouldn't have left a superior officer alone in the middle of nowhere with a mysterious box without very good reasons. Ax understood, he would have acted the same way. He couldn't risk explaining his plan, because they would have thought him insane. If he morphed in front of them, they would have shot him without a thought. Human's always reacted first and only later would think reasonable. Ax did feel bad for killing them. There jobs were the same, to protect the innocent. But their job was to protect a country; his was to protect the planet. And the needs for the many, out weigh the needs of the few. Ax remembered hearing that on a science fiction movie once. He couldn't remember the name of the movie, but the phrase had stuck. He opened the crate and lifted out the device. It was a 2Ft by 2Ft dull gray box, with a small button and light on one side and straps on the bottom. It was a simple design. Human could build one if they had too, but with luck, they never will. It was time. Ax morphed into a Hork-Bajir. He put the device on like a backpack and made his way to the cave. A few feet inside, he met two Controllers. He explained his ship had crashed near by and he was carrying some Yeerks to the pool. They just looked at each other and were about to call someone, but Ax grabbed their heads just and crushed them like eggs. He scooped up their guns and ran for it. He blasted his way deeper and deeper into the cave. No one was able to raise an alarm. Ax didn't count how many Controllers he killed, didn't bother to see if he HAD killed them or only wounded. It didn't matter. This was a one-way mission. In mid-stride he morphed again, if he was going to die it would be as an Andalite. His guns were constantly firing, his hooves pounding on the hard ground, he was almost there!
The Controllers around the pool heard the shots and yells. They were surprised to see an Andalite run into the cave. It jumped into the air tossing it's guns aside, and landed in the middle of the pool. Some Controllers were busy gathering up Yeerks that had been thrown out of the pool when Ax jumped in, the Yeerks left in the pool where busy swimming toward the body that had so thoughtfully placed itself in their mist. Ax slapped the button on the box, as he locked eyes with a familiar face. It was Cassie, but not Cassie, and she was pointing a gun at him. They both knew she wouldn't fire, because of all the Yeerks near by. The gun was just to keep him in place, but Ax had no intention of moving. Ax felt the Yeerks crawl up his blue fur. Out of reflex, he slapped at some of them. But there were too many and one of them almost got into his ear. But another one was already in his other ear. Ax felt himself fade away.
The first thing the Yeerk did was found out why this Andalite had done such an insane thing. It discovered what the dull gray box was, but it was too late. The timer had reached zero. The cave became a nuclear inferno. Controllers, Yeerks, pools, and Andalite were instantly vaporized. The nuclear fire spread to adjoining tunnels, all remaining pools boiled away. Anything that survived the explosion soon died the resulting cave-in and radioactive fall-out.
There was nothing the Yeerk mother ship could have done even if it hadn't been busy. At the same moment Ax bomb went off false orders where were sent to six ships positioned in the Atlantic. The orders, apparently from the Pentagon, were for each ship to launch a dozen nuclear cruise missiles, which had been preprogrammed by Ax to a specific visual spectrum. The spectrum visible to most birds. The Yeerks on board saw the missiles and checked their cloak. It was still on and working perfectly, so they didn't pay the missiles any more attention. Humans were always shooting things in the air for no other reason than they could. It wasn't until sometime later when they saw the missiles were still coming directly at them that they panicked. The ship's weapons were brought on line, but only sixteen were hit. The remaining 56 hit the Yeerk vessel. The blast was so large it knocked several satellites out of orbit. Half the planet saw the explosion and the shower of debris. Larger pieces burned in the atmosphere or landed in the oceans.
The government tried to cover everything up; saying a pair of large satellites collided and had to be destroyed. However, over the following three days hundreds of people, most of whom were highly placed officials, came forward with stories of being controlled by aliens. Yeerk technology was recovered and examined. The program Ax wrote was also discovered and used by all military organizations. The Andalite gave technology to the Yeerks, now the Yeerks had done the same for the Humans. If the Yeerks ever returned to Earth, they would find a planet more than ready to battle them on their own level.
THE END