Animorphs: The Offspring
[Insert normal disclaimer here]
Thought-speak is in italics
My name is Cassie. A few days ago I received a strange letter from what seemed to be somewhere high up in the US government. I've received government letters before, but very few of them were delivered personally like this one was. And all the confidentiality agreements that were included in the letter made it seem incredibly important. When I finally read the actual letter it was very brief and to the point though. It was an invitation to a top secret meeting that "I may find of interest" happening in Washington D.C. That's really all the letter said.
I had been to a few "secret" meetings before, but this one seemed more serious than usual. I wasn't sure what to expect when I finally made it into the room after passing all of the security. My parents had also gotten letters so they were with me as well, but since there were so many laws I'd possibly be breaking I didn't want to risk asking anyone else if they'd also gotten a letter. I suspected this meeting had something to do with the Animorphs and their families though. Most of these "secret" meetings did. And if I had to guess I'd say the meeting had to do with Jake, Marco, and Tobias going off to rescue Ax.
The government had been pretty open about discussing whatever it knew about aliens once the invasion was over, but some people are never satisfied. Rumors and conspiracy theories were constantly popping up over every little thing that went on. And when Jake and Marco suddenly disappeared things really started to get crazy.
To my knowledge the Andalites stuck to their story about terrorists trying to steal one of their ships and crashing it. And also to the best of my knowledge our government never knew that Jake, Marco, and Tobias were part of that plan at all. But since they all disappeared directly after that incident happened a torrent of conspiracy theories began to pour out shortly after; each one crazier than the last.
From what Jake told me there were a few good reasons for the Andalites to lie about something like this. It had to do with some treaty or something the Andalites made with another race. But they wanted Ax back just as much as we did (he was undoubtedly the most famous Andalite at the time), so they were willing to help us find him anyway they could. But if the other race found out about their involvement it would break their treaty and who knows what that'd lead to. That's why they had to keep it a secret even from the Human government.
That's also why I think this meeting had something to do with that whole incident. Perhaps they'd finally found some evidence to suggest what happened really to Jake and Marco. Before they left they didn't even tell their own parents where they were going or anything about what they were planing on doing. I felt real bad about the whole situation, but I had to keep quiet about everything I knew as well. Maybe they'd all finally find out about what really happened today though. I really hoped that was the case. Keeping it all a secret was really starting to get to me. And that's really saying something.
As my parents and I entered the room I wasn't all that surprised to see Rachel's and Jake's parents along with Tobias' mom sitting inside the small room. That was when I knew for sure that the meeting had something to do with The Animorphs. We took a seat next to all of them and started some small talk while we waited. Marco's parents weren't far behind us and as soon as they made it into the room the meeting began.
A somewhat tall man in a suit suddenly came into the room and made his way to the front. "Hello," he said in a strong and sturdy voice, "I represent the Directorate of Intelligence division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm sure you're all wondering why you've all been asked to attend this meeting. You all have probably noticed by now that only direct family members of The Animorphs are attending this meeting. That is because the information presented in this meeting must not be made public to anyone else under any circumstances. But due to the request of the President of the United States himself this information is being presented to all of you due to your children's previous service to our nation and to the entire world. But before I begin I must make one thing clear. You must never repeat any of the information presented to you outside this room due to it's top secret classification. As far as the government's concerned you never received any invitations to attend any meeting. In fact this meeting is not even taking place at this time. If information about this meeting or what was discussed during it is released every person in this room is liable and will be arrested for treason with the maximum punishment being an execution. If you do not accept these terms then you must leave the room now. If you do so be advised that this meeting still did not take place and simply by attending you have already sworn your secrecy on the subject."
Everybody took a few quick looks around the room to see what everyone else was going to do, but it wasn't that much of a surprise when everybody remained in their seats. The man in the suit cleared his throat after a short time and began once again.
"This will be the final warning," he said sternly. No one even turned around to look at each other this time.
"Well then," he began, "the recent rumors that have been circulating are true. Five days ago the Former SETI Institute received a lightly encrypted transmission of unknown origin. As with any transmission of an unknown origin it was reported to the FBI as dictated in the Global Extra-Terrestrial Emissions Mandate in order to verify it's message and report it to the proper recipients. But when this specific message was decrypted it contained some very surprising information. It appeared to be a text document written by none other than Tobias Fangor. On it's own this would not have been enough reason to classify it as top secret, but due to some of the content this was a very necessary classification."
He took a pause before continuing. "This message was apparently sent from some sort of ship that he had been traveling on for five months at the time he wrote this message. And, according to his message, Jake and Marco were on the ship with him as well as a few others. They had acquired this ship in order to search for and possibly try and rescue Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill who had been captured by unknown forces shortly before the disappearance of Jake and Marco."
"That is all the concrete information that could be obtained from the transmission, but this information raises many questions. None of our records show either Jake or Marco boarding any sort of interplanetary vessel so this raises questions about how they actually managed to obtain one. The only other explination was that The Andalites had given one to them and The Andalites have declined doing so numerous times. When we informed them about this transmission we were told never to release it to the public for numerous reasons. To keep relations between our races as good as possible we decided to honor their request, but when the president heard this he was unhappy with their decision. Since the part of the transmission in question was only the brief beginning section he insisted that a modified version be released so that the actual message that Tobias was trying to convey be known to the public. This was met with some opposition as expected and eventually defeated, but The President was able to secure a private viewing of the message by the families of The Animorphs as gratitude for your children's sacrifice."
We all turned our attention away from the guy who was talking to another guy who entered the room carrying a briefcase. He came up next to the man that was talking and slowly opened the briefcase which was carrying nothing more than some simple paper.
"In this briefcase," the man who was talking continued, "are ten unedited copies of the transmission that was received; one for each person in the room. In a moment you will each be given a copy and allowed to read the transmission in it's entirety. These copies must be returned before you leave this room. No copies are to be removed from this room under any circumstances. Doing so will result in very harsh penalties. The details are on the coversheets which must be signed and returned before you can begin to read the transmission. Once finished you will return all of the sheets back into the briefcase and they will quickly be shredded and incinerated. Only upon a final detailed search for any part of the transmission in your belonging will you be allowed to leave the room. Any questions?"
Everyone looked around the room to see if anyone was going to ask anything, but no one did. And shortly after that the man with the briefcase began to pass out the copies.
He started on my side of the room so I received mine quickly. After quickly skimming over the coversheet and signing at the bottom I tore it off and handed it to the guy that was speaking before. I then flipped past some of the legal crap attached to the document until I finally got to the beginning of the message. This is what it said.