Prologue
" Can we shoot?" Jake asked Menderash, making no attempt to conceal his words from [Crayak].
"His Dracon cannon have longer range and greater power," Menderash reported grimly. "And his defensive shields have been enhanced. I doubt our cannon can penetrate them."
"Thought so," Jake said, still weirdly calm. "But we're faster."
"Yes."
Jake took a deep breath. He looked around the bridge at each of us. At Tobias. At me. "What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"
I nodded, wishing I'd kept my mouth shut.
There was a dangerous smile on Jake's face.
Rachel's smile.
"Full emergency power to the engines," Jake said. "Ram the Blade ship."
From: The Beginning
By: K. A. Applegate
pp.154-155
Chapter 1
Hi. My name is Jake. You know the drill, and if you don't, well, too bad. Because once, there was a time when I wouldn't have told you my full name, which is Jake Berensen. Or where I lived. Which was once in a blue two-story house on 1811 Cove Avenue. Huh. Seems like a million years ago since I'd've felt safe enough to tell you that. The war with the Yeerks changed everything for the six of us. We called ourselves the Animorphs. Five human kids and an alien named Aximilli, but we called him Ax. Did what we could with the technology we had, the morphing technology. It'd come from Ax's people, the Andalites, actually. The ability to change ourselves into animals, to do all we could to keep our families, our homes, our lives, our planet, from falling into the Yeerks' hands. Those alien parasites, slugs, basically, that controlled everything a person did from inside their head, wrapped around their brain. Made them human-Controllers. There were other Controllers, too. Alien controllers. Hork-Bajir. Taxxons. Some others too, I guess.
And one Andalite-Controller,the worst of them all: Visser Three. Third most powerful of all Yeerks, excluding their Council of Thirteen. Toward the end, he was promoted, to Visser One. In the end, the Andalite was freed.
We'd fought so long. Suffered a lot.
Tobias, trapped forever as a hawk.
Nightmares, asleep and living, of the endless battles.
Watching as our homes burned, our lives destroyed as thousands died.
So much, so many. And though we fought hard, and I led it all, trying to keep us all together, alive. I don't remember, why was I the general, the guy in charge? Oh yeah, that's right. Because Marco said so. Said I was the perfect leader. "O fearless leader."
But all I could do wasn't enough. I killed Rachel. My cousin, my fellow Animorph. Sent her to take out my brother, a powerful Yeerk, with enough supporters to run the remaining Yeerks himself after... It ended the war, their deaths.
I don't feel guilty anymore. Not too much, anyways. Sometimes...but it ended the war. Prevented millions more from dying, I guess. I don't really know. Who knows the future, anyhow?
Rachel was the best fighter of all of us. Was. She's gone. It's hard, sometimes, coming to terms with that. I mean, so many people died in all that, some innocent, some evil. But while the enemy had been faceless, this... this was my cousin, someone close. And I knew that the choice to send her had been no real choice at all.
Back to us Animorphs. With us, there'd been our good friend Ax. Just as dependable as Rachel in a fight. How many times had his trusty tail blade saved our lives? And how long had his Andalite body been the decoy that kept the Yeerks from guessing that we were only human kids? How many times had his knowledge of the Yeerks and other species kept us, if not one step ahead, then at least close behind? How many times had he insisted on calling me, "Prince Jake"?
It'd been a running joke between us. It ran in my head now as a repeating chorus:
-Alright, Prince Jake. -
- Don't call me "Prince". -
- Yes, Prince Jake. -
And I would never hear those familiar phrases again. Crayak had captured him, and now, he was part of that, that fiend.
It was hard, too hard, for me to think in those terms. I was thinking too much, too rapidly. My head hurt. I turned my mind to other matters. Things that didn't hurt so much.
There three other crewmembers onboard the Rachel. Jeanne and Sergeant Santorelli, two recruits from classes I'd taught, after the war. I chose them mostly because neither had any close family to think about. And Menderash, a former Andalite. He'd chosen to become human permanently, to lead us out here, to where the Blade ship was last seen. He was also the only known survivor of the Intrepid, Ax's ship. I couldn't keep in my rage at the monster who lay just ahead. I wanted to spin out, throw things, bellow and roar. There wasn't enough time left to vent my anger, and besides, what good would it do?
I didn't want to remember. I didn't need or want the memories to resurface, I'd spent more than enough time moping long ago. The past is done.
But faces kept creeping up. My parents, shooting at me as human-Controllers. My brother Tom. Rachel.
Rachel, I mentally called out to her, wherever she was, this one's for you.