Tobias

My wing hurt. I smelled burning flesh. A cut on my back oozed blood. But I was alive. And we had saved Cassie. And this time nobody had been captured. It seemed like the perfect victory over Visser Three.

But it wasn't.

I thought about that as the five of us flew into the forest in our various bird of prey morphs. We could no longer see Anakin's ship but we trusted that he and Ax had landed it safely in the woods. Of course, the first time we'd seen Anakin, he'd crashed the ship, but I tried not to think about that. I'm sure that attacking tri-fighters had something to do with it. I think. I hope. Probably.

Anyway, I knew our mission wasn't quite over. Yes, we'd found Cassie before the two-hour time limit. Yes, we'd fought our way out through the visser's guards.

But now the question was: how would Anakin get back home?

I hoped the others had some ideas because I sure didn't. Maybe Ax would, he was probably our best bet.

For some reason, I kept thinking about his brother, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. He'd died to give us time to escape and fight Visser Three with the morphing powers he'd given us. I'd felt some sort of connection to him and then he had died right before our eyes. Murdered by Visser Three.

I guess that now that another visitor from outer space needed our help, I wanted to do all I could to help him. I felt like, somehow, I could make up for not being able to save Elfangor.

These thoughts all crowded my brain as we sailed through the air. No one said anything so it was a quiet flight. I could just barely see Jake's peregrine falcon ahead of me and to the left. Cassie's osprey was higher than me and to the right. Rachel was soaring in a slight angle that brought her farther from me. We would appear to any human observer as just a bunch of big birds going about our own business and not at all like a group. That would have aroused suspicion.

With my sharp hawk eyes, I scanned the trees below. It was incredible how much I could see. A sparrow's nest in the branches of a wide maple. A rabbit peaking cautiously out of its hole in the ground. The ants crawling along the bark of the trees.

But I was looking for something a bit bigger than that. I swept my gaze across the forest canopy and that's when I saw it. A black shape sitting beside a grove of trees in a small clearing. Two figures standing outside. A blue and white dome on little tread feet.

I angled my wings and dropped below the tree line. Into the field. I landed on the lowest branch of the nearest tree.

Within minutes, the rest of our group had landed and began to demorph into their human selves.

Ax had already demorphed and was once again a blue-furred, four-eyed, scorpion-tailed Andalite. He and Anakin were inspecting the ship.

((Is everything okay?)) I asked.

((It appears that the ship has sustained damage from Dracon beams as we attempted to take it from the construction site,)) Ax replied. ((The weapons system is not functional and there is a slight problem with the navigation control, which is why it took us a little longer to arrive here.))

"Can you fix it?" Jake questioned.

((Yes, Prince Jake, I believe we can, with the proper tools.))

"Then you'd better get started," said Jake. "And Ax? Don't call me 'Prince.'"

((Yes, Prince Jake.))

Jake sighed but let it go.

It was already late and so everyone headed back to their homes. That is, everyone except Ax and me. We stayed to give Anakin company but mostly because we had no homes. Not anymore.

Ax had no problem falling to sleep that night. Me, I stayed perched in a tree, missing the familiarity of my meadow. I was also afraid some owl would come and knock me out of the tree. I know, it's a weird thing to worry about, but when you're a hawk, you have too.

Anakin didn't sleep either. He just lie on his back, gazing up at the stars. I didn't need to wonder what was on his mind. I already knew. It must have been hard for him to be trapped on some alien planet, light years away from home.

The next day we all met right back here. Jake was carrying a plastic bag with several assorted tools he had found at his house: screwdriver, wrench, etc.

Ax announced that it wasn't enough, so he, Rachel, and Jake took a trip to Radio Shack in the mall.

I admit, I wasn't so sure about this. The last time Ax had gone to the mall had been disastrous. Being in such a public place, he couldn't very well go there as himself. He had to morph human. Unfortunately, since Andalites have no mouths, he became obsessed with food, especially one food in particular. Cinnamon buns.

I was afraid this trip to the mall would be a total disaster, but turns out it wasn't so bad. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I swooped low to scan the place.

According to Jake, it had been almost normal. Almost. He, Rachel, and Ax had entered through a different door so as to avoid the temptation of the food court. So Ax had no problem resisting the urge to buy a cinnabon.

He did, however, manage to find the giant salted pretzels at a stand that someone had cleverly placed outside the toy shop. Ax made away with as many free samples as he could get his hands on before the guy pulled the tray away from him.

When they returned, they had new materials that Ax had picked out. Some stuff I didn't even know the purpose of, but I figured I'd find out soon enough.

Anakin began work on his ship right away. Ax helped. I perched on my branch and watched. I could see a big black burn mark on the ship's left side. Or is port side? Whatever.

Anyway, there were also what looked like two ragged holes in the metal where the burn mark was darkest. Through these holes I saw wires, some of them frayed.

((What are you doing?)) I asked out of curiosity and the fact that I had nothing else to do.

"These wires are snapped," Anakin replied. "I have to fuse them back together or else the weapons won't work."

Using a tool recently acquired from Radio Shack, he was twisting one of the wires, bringing both ends together. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

((What about navigation?))

"Oh, that was the easy part," was Anakin's simple answer.

"Okay, so we got his ship back, we've got the right tools to repair it," Marco said. "But aren't you guys forgetting the most important part?"

"What's that?" Cassie asked.

"How is he going to get back home?"

I think we were all silent for about a minute. I honestly didn't know. Truth be told, I hadn't given it much thought. But we'd decided to help Anakin and so we'd have to come up with something.

That's when Ax spoke up. ((There may be a way,)) he said.

"Yeah? And what's that?" Marco wanted to know.

((If he came through a Sario Rip to get here, then it is most likely still active. We can send him back through but we will need to recreate the explosion of energy needed that sent him here in the first place.))

"And how are we going to do that?" Marco asked sceptically.

Ax focused his stalk eyes on him, then glanced around at the rest of us. He had a plan. Sort of. ((We will need to get ourselves a bug fighter.))