Imagine a picture of Rachel turning into a Yeerk

64: The Liberation

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Well, here we go again. I forget my original reasons for doing this particular book (although I'm sure they were probably decent, at best), so I'm just going to say that I hope you learn al ittle bit of a lesson from this. No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter what your power, always make sure to "know where your towel is at."

Enjoy or go to hell.

If I owned the Animorphs, you wouldn't be reading this for free.

And if I owned Streetlight Manifesto, I'd have better things to do than write fan fiction.

Chapter 1

My name is Rachel. If you really cared, you could easily find out my last name. You could pretty quickly come up with the name of the place where I live. But you'd be in for a surprise, because you'd find out that, according to all legal records, I'm dead.

As you probably know, I died at the end of the First Yeerk War. By now, you probably know that the Yeerks are back. I'm back too, thanks to my cousin Jake. He traded his life for mine. I can't say it was too terrible being dead, but I did miss my family a lot.

My family… Now that's something that's changed completely. My mom got remarried to a French guy named Jacques. He seems like a good enough guy.

Jacques has a daughter, Jeanne, who is now a fellow Animorph. Jake recruited her before he even knew she was my step-sister. I like Jeanne, but there's something wrong with her. How do I know? She's dating Marco.

Of course, the French aren't the strangest addition to my family. Tobias and Al take that prize. Tobias is a human now, thanks to the Crayak, but he still has most of his hawk instincts. He tries to hide it from us, but I can see it.

Al, whose real name is Alloran-Sirinial-Fangor, is Tobias's half-brother. For a while, Tobias and I lived together on his ship, the Reliquary, and raised Al kind of like I helped my mom raise my sisters, Jordan and Sara.

It's kind of crowded in my house now. It used to just be myself, my mom, Jordan, and Sara (who, by the way, had to share a room). Now, Jeanne, Tobias, Jacques, and Alloran all live with as well. If we stay here much longer, we'd have to get a bigger place.

We were only back home temporarily. The Yeerks were opening up a new front and we needed to shut it down. After that, we'd go back to living on the Reliquary. It would be kind of a relief, really. I like Jeanne, but I'm not exactly itching to keep sharing my room with her. Especially not now that she's carrying Marco germs.

The reason I'm giving all this information on how big my family has become is to highlight how much skill it took for me to get to the bathroom first every morning. This morning was no exception.

I rolled out of bed, which woke Tobias up. He and Jeanne had traded places for the night, for which I was grateful. Jeanne had gotten into the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and taking me with her.

Almost immediately, I started feeling a little dizzy and sick to my stomach. This had been happening lately. I probably caught some kind of bug from a trip to the Yeerk pool or something. We did spend a lot of time in dumpsters during our missions.

I threw up. Good thing I wasn't into late-night snacks, so there wasn't much to deal with. I was also glad I didn't drink anything at night. This could have been a lot more disgusting.

When I was done, I saw Tobias in the doorway. I think he looked worried, but it's kind of hard to tell with him. His face doesn't show a lot of emotion; he sort of forgot how during his time as a hawk.

"What?" I asked.

He shrugged and nodded towards the toilet. "That. Are you alright, Rach?"

"Yeah. I guess I just had a bad dream or something. You know how it is. That fight in the parking lot a few days ago was pretty bad. So many humans were there…"

He nodded again. "Alright. Jeanne's already making breakfast, so no need to worry yourself about that."

I sighed. I loved to cook. It kind of reminded me of fighting a battle, really. But Tobias insisted that I not cook while we were back here. He wanted to give me a vacation. Isn't that sweet of him?

What he said next wasn't nearly as sweet. "Marco and David are coming over for breakfast."

I knew what that meant. We'd be planning our next mission. Things hadn't gone too well during our last one. We had blown an attempt to sabotage a new Yeerk recruiting tool and we had been conned into saving the lives of the Visser and Guraff. Even worse, Jordan had become a Controller for a few hours and was used as bait to ensure that we helped.

"Who else is home?" I asked. Aside from Jordan and Jeanne, no one else in my family knew that the Yeerks were in town. We wanted to keep it that way.

"Your mom took Sara shopping. Jacques decided to go, too. Something about picking up a new suit."

"What about Jordan?"

Tobias kept his face blank, his voice flat. "She wants to sit in on the meeting. She knows we won't give her the morphing power, but she wants to help in any way she can. I tried to talk her out of it, but…well, she's your sister, after all. It was almost like trying to talk you out of something you wanted to do."

I laughed. "And you know how well that works out. Fine, she gets to sit in. But under no circumstances does she get to join in. I'd prefer it if she wouldn't even speak."

"I'd prefer it if these meetings weren't necessary at all. But don't let the others know I said that. I've got a reputation to protect. They think I'm as crazy as you."

Chapter 2

Jordan suddenly looked very nervous. I get the impression that she hadn't really thought this through. She was surrounded by the Animorphs, the guerilla warriors fighting off alien slugs. This was no pleasant breakfast conversation.

Of course, Marco didn't seem to understand that. "You know, they always told me this was the most important meal of the day," he began.

"Stop now," I ordered him. Knowing that he would never listen, I warned Jordan, "This part isn't worth listening to."

"Trust me, it's funny," Marco promised. Since he was speaking mostly to himself anyway, he continued as though I had never interrupted him. "What makes it so important? Is it because this is the meal during which we think up new ways to get ourselves killed?"

"Are we at the funny part yet?" Jeanne asked.

"Or maybe it's because it's the meal during which I get to harass Tobias and Rachel. So, Jeanne slept on the couch last night. What were the two of you up to?" Marco winked at me.

"Is this the meal where I get to make you swallow a whole grapefruit?" I answered.

"A little hormonal, Xena?" he asked. "Is there something you should share with the group?"

"Marco…" Jeanne began in a warning tone. Jordan looked around, uncomfortable. She didn't know this was a usual occurrence.

Although usual, he was still making me mad. And he showed no signs of stopping. "Are we going to hear the pitter-patter of crazy little bird feet?"

"Our new mission," Tobias interrupted before I could answer. "We send Marco as an ambassador to the rebel Yeerks."

Marco got the hint and shut up. Finally. Just then, David and Al came into the room. They had been morphing out of sight from Jordan. It's a pretty disgusting thing to see and we didn't see the need to screw her up more than she had been already. Jordan had been scarred enough by having Guraff in her head.

Guraff was the Visser's right hand man. He wasn't evil like the Visser, but he definitely wasn't on our side. Actually, he kind of reminded me of me. He was…a patriot.

David pulled out a chair next to Jordan. Al took one next to me. David spoke up, "Do we have a plan?"

Tobias nodded. "Actually, it was your plan, David."

David choked on some eggs he was eating. Whether it was out of surprise or because he was inhaling them like an Andalite was beyond my ability to judge. Both David and Al were chewing through breakfast like Pac Man.

"My plan?" David finally asked. Jordan was giving him a strange look. She was probably just disgusted by the way he ate. I guess years of living as a rat does weird things to you.

Tobias nodded. "Yep. Remember when you, Al, and Jeanne took that little trip to the Yeerk pool and fiddled with their computers? When you came back, you told me a little idea you had. I think I figured out a way to make it work."

David and Al stopped eating and instead just stared at Tobias. "Do you mean it?" Alloran asked finally.

"Yep. I've thought it through and I think I've worked out the perfect plan."

"Hold on, hold on," Marco interrupted, "what's going on? Why are you making plans without the rest of us, Tobias?"

"Because I didn't want to give anyone false hope. I didn't even want you to think of this possibility unless we actually had a way of pulling it off."

"What plan?"

Tobias went on slowly. "When they were in the Yeerk pool, Jeanne, David, and Al witnessed a Kelbrid dominance ritual. They do it every time the Visser gets a new shipment of Kelbrid, to ensure their loyalty.

"The Visser picks out the leader of the pack and fights him. Because the Kelbrid hosts respect strength in battle, they're loyal to the Visser. It makes them very easy for the Yeerks to control, but it also makes the Visser know that he can trust the Kelbrid."

I didn't understand what he was getting at, but Marco figured it out. "Oh man. You're not about to suggest what I think you're going to, are you?"

"I'm pretty sure I am. These rebel Yeerks are a problem for the Visser, and we all know how he deals with problems. He gets the biggest hammer he can and he smashes them. He'll be calling in more Kelbrid. And when they come, we'll infiltrate them."

I figured it out then. "The Visser will call one of us out to fight him. Since he uses Kelbrid that are already infested, he'll be expecting the Kelbrid to throw the fight. That's when we get him. We're going to kill the Visser, aren't we?"

There was a look in Tobias's eyes then. It was something I hadn't seen in a long time. It was hope. Not the half-hope he always offered us or his grim determination to fight on no matter what. This was like back when he thought the Ellimist would restore his humanity. This was pure hope, a belief that life might actually get better. I didn't even know he still had that capacity.

"No, Rachel, we aren't going to kill him. We're going to steal his host." He smiled involuntarily for the first time in a long time. "We're going to save Ax."

Chapter 3

This would be one of our hardest missions, so we decided to get at it that very afternoon, just after lunch. Of course, Marco complained about it for a while, but in the end he had no choice.

Marco and Jeanne snuck off to have some…quiet time, since Marco was pretty sure they were both going to wind up dead. I hoped that Jeanne had enough sense to know when to stop him.

David decided that he'd hang around my place. I wasn't exactly thrilled about that, but I let it go. The fact that Tobias told me to lay off of David had nothing to do with it. I swear. David and Al hung around with Jordan.

I had sent Tobias to the supermarket. I don't know why, but I suddenly had a really powerful craving for zucchini and peanut butter. We had chunky peanut butter, but I needed smooth. After I spent about ten minutes drilling this point into his head, Tobias left.

While I was waiting for him to come back, I amused myself by munching on a cucumber with peanut butter. Yes, the chunky peanut butter. It went great with cucumbers. Not with zucchini, though.

I heard Jordan laugh at something, so I went into the living room to investigate. I was worried that Al was having some kind of episode. He can be a bit odd at times.

Al wasn't there. It was just Jordan and David, in human morph. "What are you two up to?" I asked.

"What are you eating?" Jordan answered.

"Cucumber with peanut butter. Don't change the subject," I snapped.

"That's disgusting," Jordan replied.

David shrugged. "I'd eat it."

"You'd eat anything," Jordan told him, shooting him a look. I didn't like that look. I knew what kind of look that was. "No, Jordan. David is off limits."

"Uh…what?" David asked.

"Why?" At least Jordan understood what I meant. David, apparently, was as clueless as any other guy.

"For all the obvious reasons. And the fact that he tried to kill me a couple of times."

"Come on, Rachel, don't hold that against me. I've already done all I can to make it up to you. Even Marco forgave me, and you know what he's like."

"Do you mean because he's a rat?" Jordan said, ignoring David. "Is that why?"

I couldn't answer her. The rat thing was a large part of it, but I couldn't tell her that. She'd call me a hypocrite. Still, I knew I had to stop things before they started. What was it with my sisters, anyway? First Jeanne and Marco. And I'm pretty sure Sara has a crush on Al, even though he's Tobias's brother. I was not going to let Jordan go anywhere near David. Maybe we had some kind of defective chromosome. Why can't we just stay within the species? And yes, Marco counts as outside of the species.

"Where's Al?" I asked, changing the subject.

David shrugged. "Tobias called about five minutes ago. He needed help with something. I don't know what. But you know Al. He rushed off to help his prince."

"David, shouldn't you demorph? You've been in morph for a while now."

"Oh. I'll go do that. Thanks." David left me alone with Jordan. I glared at her.

"What? I can't talk to a guy?"

"Not to David, no. He's trouble, Jordan."

"And he's a rat."

"Yeah, he is. In all senses of the word."

"So it bothers you that I might like a guy who's an animal most of the time?"

"Like him? You just met him!"

"And I already know him better than you do, apparently." I know she was just messing with me. David definitely wasn't her type. For starters, his human body was probably about as old as Sara and no matter what sort of problems Jordan might have, she defnitely wasn't into that sort of thing. She wasj ust pretending to tick me off.

I don't know what came over me. I don't know why I did what I did next. I sat down on the couch next to Jordan and hugged her. I realized that I was crying.

"Rachel…what's wrong? If it bothers you that much, I won't talk to him again. I…what's going on? You never cry, Rachel. Not even when you really should."

"I don't know…I just…" I couldn't figure it out either. One minute, I was happily eating a cucumber. Then, I was angry at David. And suddenly, I was crying for no reason. The weird thing was, this wasn't the first time this had happened. It was just the first time someone was around to see it.

"Rachel, what's gotten into you?"

"I…I don't know," I said. It was kind of true. I didn't know. But I had a guess. But it wasn't something I could confirm on my own. To know for sure, I'd have to get help from the absolute last person I wanted to get help from.

I'd have preferred to ask Guraff. Or even the Visser. Maybe even David would have been better. Heck, if the Drode or even Crayak himself had offered help, I'd have taken it rather than do what I was about to do next.

But in the end, I had no choice.

Chapter 4

I flew to Marco's place. It might not have been my best idea, but I had to get there soon. I had to know as soon as possible. If I could find out before the mission, that would be great. If not…then I'd have to be really careful.

A window was open on one of the upper floors of his mansion. That was probably how he and Jeanne had gotten there. Of course, they could have taken one of the cars I knew Marco had in his basement.

I found them in his living room. They weren't doing much. Just watching TV. I was glad, but curious. Knowing Marco, I expected things to be much more adult. I guess I hadn't given Jeanne enough credit.

Even though they were totally innocent, Marco jumped up when he saw me. He raised his hands like I was a cop pointing a piece at him. "We weren't doing anything!" he shouted, his voice suddenly very high pitched.

Jeanne gave me a look that I used to have to give to Cassie a lot. I started to demorph. ((I'm not here to interrupt anything,))

"I find that hard to believe," Jeanne muttered.

((I I need to talk to Marco. Alone.))

Jeanne was confused, but she left. "I'll see you later," she told Marco. "You know where to find me."

When she was gone, Marc glared at me. "What was that about!? I may have messed with you and Tobias but I never did something like this."

I was fully demorphed. "It's an emergency."

He shrugged. "Fine." Then, I guess he decided he'd amuse himself by insulting me. "Leotard's looking a little tight, Xena. Putting on a little weight? I mean, I guess you can now that you don't have to keep Tobias interested. I just didn't know you could gain weight."

He didn't realize how close to home his comment had come. I felt tears in my eyes. So that he didn't see, I turned and went into the kitchen. I poured some instant Jello mix into a jug of milk. I shook it for a moment, then started drinking it.

"Eating for two?" Marco joked.

I couldn't stop myself. I hit him in the head with the milk. It spilled everywhere. "Ow! What the hell, Rachel!?"

I shuddered. I had to tell him some time. That was why I was here, after all. "Yeah. I think I might be."

I didn't know it was possible, but he went completely pale. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. I decided to explain why I was there. "What I need is to find a doctor who won't ask me questions I can't answer. Like what my name is. I need someone I can trust."

"Why did you come to me for this?"

I sighed. "Come on, Marco. If anyone would know a doctor like that, it's you. Believe me, I wish I could have gone to anyone else for this, but you're my only option."

"Have you tried appealing to a higher power?" At least he was making jokes now. He was getting over it. It was his turn to sigh. "Fine, I'll help you out. But Rachel, you know what this means, don't you?"

I nodded. "If I'm right, I can't be an Animorph anymore. I'm out of the fight."

Marco shook his head. "No. Well, yeah, but that's not what I meant. It means that you and I are officially over." I gave him a look. He just laughed. "I mean, I can't date a pregnant chick. Or one with a kid. It's over between us, Xena. Oh well, I guess Jeanne will be happy about that, at least."

"Yeah, Marco, it's over between us. Like it never even started," I agreed. Maybe now he'd stop with his little comments.

Instead, he got an odd look in his eye. "Why is that, Rachel? I mean, there was always something between us. I felt it and I know you did, too. I think everyone felt it. Why didn't anything ever come of us? Why didn't we ever even try?"

It was a good question, really, and not one that I had a real answer to. So I just shrugged. "I guess…I guess there wasn't anything really there, Marco."

He shook his head. "No. You know that isn't true. Look, I understand why we never got together after you realized how you felt about Tobias. I understood that. I even backed off. But before then… Why didn't we ever even try? Was it really only me? Was I just fooling myself?"

I didn't want to say what I said next, but I couldn't help myself. I think it was the theoretical pregnancy kicking in. "It wasn't just you," I blurted out.

He just looked at me, so I went on. "There were times, Marco… Especially after really hard missions. I wanted someone; needed someone. And the guy I wanted…he was a hawk. There was nothing he could do. And sometimes…sometimes, I used to fly over to your house late at night."

"What? I never knew that."

"No, of course not. I never had the courage to wake you us. Sometimes, I just flew past. Sometimes, I sat in a tree outside, wishing I was brave enough to reach out. But I never did. Something always held me back."

"What?"

"I don't know. Maybe I always knew, deep down inside, how I felt about Tobias. Or maybe I just didn't think you'd care. Or maybe …I don't know, maybe it was fate or God or the Ellimist or someone. But probably...probably it's because anyting between us could never have been anything that mattered. Who we really are, underneath it all...those two could never coexist. We could never actually be ourselves with each other. It' wouldn't have lasted a week. And considering we were, what, thirteen at the time, that week wouldn't have been worht mentioning."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes. Then, he said, "Yeah; I think hat about sums it up. Okay, let's go see the doc."

Chapter 5

I won't go into the details of my visit to the gynecologist. There's no need for you to know. It wasn't a good story anyway. All you need to know is that, thanks to advances in medical technology brought to us by our friends the Andalites, I could find out my results in less than an hour.

Marco waited with me. It was so weird. Of all the Animorphs, the one I least expected to be doing this was Marco. At least, counting the original Animorphs.

I remembered imagining this day when I was younger. In my imagination, I was always older. Sometimes, it was Tobias waiting with me, hoping. Sometimes, it was Cassie or Jake. Those were all the fantasies about what would happen if the war was over.

I used to think about other possibilities, too. In one of my imaginings, it was Ax who was here with me, waiting to see whether or not his shorm would be a father. Never in my wildest dreams was it Marco who was with me.

"Miss?" the doctor called. Marco and I both looked up. The doctor had a big smile on his face. "Congratulations to you both."

"Oh, it's not mine," Marco told him.

"Oh…well then…I hope the two of you can work this out."

"We aren't together," I told him.

"Well, I'm not here to tell you how live your life, but a child is most stable if they grow up in a two parent home."

"Hey!" I shouted. "I lived in a single parent home!"

"And you are the paragon of stability," Marco remarked. "Thanks, doc. See you on the golf course Sunday?"

"I'll be there, sir. And maybe this time I'll beat you."

"Dream on, doc. Dream on."

Before we left, it occurred to me to ask the doctor a question. "Hey, doctor? What would happen if someone who was pregnant…morphed?"

"Funny you should ask. I read an article about that just this morning, actually. There are several competing schools of thought on the subject, but the general belief is that the child would be stored in z-space; at least, if it was in the early stages of development. No one has experimented with children more than a few weeks into development. To do so would be considered highly unethical. That kind of research might be legal elsewhere in the galaxy, but no government on Earth allows it. I think the same is true with the Andalites."

"Okay. Thanks."

We drove back to my house. In the driveway, Marco looked at me expectantly. "So, how are you going to break the news to bird-boy? I'm thinking you should make some sort of avian pun. Something to do with eggs..."

I shook my head. "Marco, he cannot know about this yet."

"What? Why not?"

"Because we have a mission to complete."

"Oh no, Xena. You are not going on this mission."

"I have to, Marco."

"Not a chance. How can you possibly think I'd let you fight in your present condition?"

"Marco, I have to. You guys need me!"

"Not a chance, Rachel."

"You don't understand, Marco. Do you realize how important this mission is? Not just to the war but to Tobias? We're talking about freeing Ax. Ax!"

"Do you think I don't know that? I want to save Ax as much as any other Animorph, but I am not going to risk you and this kid."

"Don't you see, Marco? If we can't save Ax, if this mission doesn't work, it'll break Tobias. I know the act he puts on for the rest of you, but I know the real him, too. He's only a man, Marco. A person can only take so much. If we lose this chance, do you know what that'll do to him?"

"If we lose you, do you know what that will do?" Marco asked. "Damn it, Rachel, do you realize how selfish you're being? All you're thinking about is how much you want to fight the Yeerks! If you were really thinking about Tobias, you wouldn't even be thinking about fighting."

"Marco, I can take care of myself. I won't get myself killed and my child will be fine. But if we don't get Ax…do you know what will happen?"

"No, Rachel. I don't know what we'll do even if we succeed. If we fail…I don't know what that'll do to Tobias. But we can't fight this war while trying to protect him."

"That's just it. He spends all his energy trying to protect us. You don't realize how much this hurts him. You don't see that this is tearing him apart. He always makes the cold, ruthless decision. And every time he does, he dies a little more. Here, finally, is a choice he can make with his heart. He needs this, Marco, or it'll be the end of him."

"Be that as it may, I can't—"

"Do you know what he'll do if we lose Ax?"

"Yeah, I know. I've seen him do it before. For a little while, he'll be out of it. And then one day, he'll come back and carry on. I know what he'll do, Rachel."

"Yeah, he'll keep fighting. But it won't be Tobias anymore. It'll be some creature that lives inside his body. He'll have finally lost himself, Marco. That isn't something I can live with."

Marco looked torn. Usually, he makes the smart decision. I was trying to convince him to do something stupid. Finally, he nodded. "Okay. But you have to promise me that you won't get yourself hurt."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Rachel. Because if you die, I'll have to tell Tobias that you took his kid down with you and that isn't something I can live with."