Chapter Two: A: A potential alliance
"You know, if you can turn into Grizzleys and can't kill this guy, I'm guessing we might not have so much luck either," said General O'Neill.

"You know," Colonel Carter said. "We don't actually have to kill him ourselves. If we expose him for what he is, the Yeerks might do that for us."

"We might be able to trick him into revealing himself," said the unnamed black man.

"How?" I asked.

"His pride. If we attack his pride, and make him appear foolish, he will reveal himself."

"Oh, please," Marco said. "He's smarter than that."

"I have seen a great many Goa'uld strategies fail because of Goa'uld arrogance."

Marco opened his mouth to give a speech. "Oh."

"Okay then," I said. "Head on out. We'll… uh… hang back here."

The General cocked his head in agreement as the Goa'uld calling himself Visser Three stepped into the pool.

The four people calling themselves SG-1 stepped out from our hiding place. "Howdy campers," said General O'Neill.

"Are you sure he's not your father?" I hissed at Marco.

"Pretty sure," he answered, shrugging.

I looked back out. I had missed some of the conversation speaking with Marco, but Visser Three seemed frozen. I really couldn't hear what was going on anymore, though.

(You dare to challenge my authority!?) I heard. I shuddered violently. (I am a… a… a Visser!)

More from SG-1 that I couldn't hear.

(Insolence! Guards!)

SG-1 spoke again.

(Do you have any idea how easy you make this sound?) I heard Visser Three hiss. (I am a GOD! I am the great Pan! And you make it sound easy to tone that down? You make light of how I tricked the Yeerks and Andalites into fighting each other? I have fooled the Andalites, I have fooled the Council of Thirteen, I have fooled ALL YEERKS!) Bingo.

1… 2… 3… (Oh dear…) he said.

From what I could see, the Yeerks were not happy. Very not happy.

Several minutes passed with everything frozen.

Then Visser Three, or more acurately Pan, decided to break the freeze by charging at SG-1.

He didn't get very far before he was knocked unconscious by a Dracon Beam.

Hoping against hope, I left the relative safety of our hiding place to go look.

Tom had fired the beam!

"You lied to us!" he said, a rage on his face I'd only seen once before, when he'd been wrongly accused of cheating on a test. It was as angry as Tom got, short of punching someone. "Tricked us! Used us! I will not allow this fight to continue another moment!"

I stared, dumbfounded.

"You tricked us into fighting the Andalites? Well, then maybe I should kill just one more…"

"No!" I yelled. "You can't kill the host!"

Tom jerked his head to look at me. His eyes widened as the Dracon Beam fell to the ground. "Jake?" he breathed.


It was a few hours later. Most of the involuntary Controllers had been released and freed. Only one cage was occupied: By Pan. The cage had been reinforced a good deal to withstand even a tail blade or any one of his morphs.

Tom had not been released. But he was free… in a sense.

"How long?" he asked.

"Over a year," I answered. "Since the day that 'you' first told me about quitting the team."

"Excuse me?" said the General. "But can we come up with an idea?"

Tom's face hardened slightly. I knew from the agreement we'd made that meant that Encik 825 had taken control. "I've spoken to most of the other Yeerks, and it's unanimous, or near unanimous. We want to fight the Goa'uld. They turned us against our mentors. They killed Yeerks and Andalites by the hundreds. They caused both races to do unspeakable deeds."

Cassie asked, "Is Aftran in… is Aftran 942 in the pool right now?"

"No," said Encik. "Her host hasn't come since the day before you were found."

Cassie smiled. "Believe it or not, that means she is in the pool. Could you call her to the infestation pier, and then point me to which one that is?"

Encik frowned. "I still say she's not there, but, okay. Leave this room, turn right and follow the pool, it's the first pier you come to."

Cassie smiled. "Thanks," she said before leaving.

Encik shook his head, then went over to the consol. He typed in something, then came back over.

"We've got to be getting back to the SGC, so, we'll be in touch," said the General before he and his friends left.

Encik smiled. "I'm sure you and your brother want to catch up," he said.

Tom's face loosened slightly, so I knew Tom was back in control.

It turned out that while Temrash had been pretty bad, Encik was a cool Yeerk. He gave Tom whatever Tom wanted, except freedom, to keep Tom from resisting too much.

(Cassie)

My name is Cassie. My name is Cassie Durgan. The days of living in shadow are over. The war with the Yeerks is over.

But a war with the Andalites may be just beginning if we can't convince them of the Yeerks noble hearts.

I am Cassie Durgan of , California. My fellow Animorphs are Jake and Rachel Berenson (they're cousins,), Marco Hasan, and Tobias Fangor.

I felt a sensation in my ear as I dunked my head while Aftran 942, my friend, pushed her way into it. It had hurt… for a moment. But now my ear was numb.

I lifted my head out of the water. Aftran was still wiggling into it, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't fall out. And it was getting hard to hold my breath.

Then I felt her touch my mind. (Cassie?) she gasped. (But… why?)

A thousand possible answers ran through my mind at once. Aftran heard them all as she continued wrapping around my brain. Finally, I said, (Why not?)

There were two, maybe three or four answers to that one.

I took a deep breath (relatively speaking, of course, as Aftran controlled my lungs…) before I said, (Look, Aftran. When I told you to stay in me while you were moving from my head into Karen's, I meant you could use my body. You're my friend, Aftran. I help my friends.)

I felt Aftran get emotional. Tears began to run down my face, but I suspected they were tears of joy. (A friend. No one's ever considered me a friend before. No one's ever just let me in their head before you. Thank you, Cassie…)

(Least I could do… for a friend.)

We rejoined Jake and Tom, who were catching up on their respective secrets. So we left to tell my parents about everything.