11 years later

I sat very still in the conference room. I had no idea what I was going to hear today, but no matter what, I couldn't see how it could be good. Yesterday, someone from the Department of Extraplanetary Security had called my house and asked me to come to the local office in town. Since the Second Alien War, that Department, or DXS as it is known, has run just about everything important, and you just don't say no when they ask you to come. I was sure they didn't know I could morph, and I could escape if I needed to.

I had acquired cockroach and house fly morphs a long time ago. They're really good at surviving things if you want to stay in a war zone, and I had decided not to move away from the house, no matter what. Through the bombardments, the landings, the sweeps and evacuations, all of it, I stayed in the house I had lived in with Tobias for three years, just in case he might come back. I could barely afford the taxes anymore, let alone improvements and upkeep. I should have moved to a hab-space long ago, but it would have felt like abandoning him.

They had not bothered to tell me what this was about, not that the DXS needed to do that – if it was related to anything alien, they could do anything they wanted. I had a feeling though, just from a glance at the other people who shared the room. Cassie sat anxiously in a seat near the front, her boxy suit obviously well-made and tailored but unflattering and about three years out of date. She was the very image of a high-ranking official more concerned with function than appearances. As the Permanent Secretary for Alien Affairs, she was theoretically the most powerful person in the world, after the President, on all matters relating to aliens and alien cultures, but the practical reality was that the DXS had pushed aside the Department of Alien Affairs.

The DXS was only supposed to handle threats, while Cassie was in charge of all peaceful contact and dealings. Since the outbreak of the second war, however, just about everything to do with space and aliens was considered a potential threat, and ended up in the DXS jurisdiction. Cassie put on a brave face, but she needed the DXS to sign off on any policies she wanted to enact, any trips she took or official functions she performed – even on any employees she wanted to hire, promote or transfer in her own department. She had DXS agents following her around, supposedly for her protection, but I think they answered to the DXS lieutenant who was her security advisor. And I think that low-ranking officer even told HER what to do sometimes. Heck, this meeting we were both attending had to be some alien-related matter, and as the most important official in the country, she was waiting with a bunch of civilians to hear what the DXS had to say.

Wearing a purple jumpsuit and fidgeting in the corner, was Naomi, Rachel's mother. She was currently serving three years in a minimum security facility for filing a brief with the Supreme Court against the DXS on behalf of Toby and the Hork-Bajir, trying to get them out of the "cultural exchange" camps they had been placed in at the start of the war. Technically, the charge was for disclosing national secrets during an emergency, but the only secrets she told were things that had been rumored for years about the experiments the DXS was performing on the aliens. She wasn't treated badly from what I hear – the DXS really doesn't seem to want power, or to harm humans any more than they think they need to, but they take their job really, really seriously. Naomi was a lot thinner, but that had been the case since her daughters moved out. She had thrown herself into her legal work, and I don't think she was taking care of herself even before she was arrested.

Dan wasn't there. He had been one of the hostages killed by the Enemy, when they had seized control of the TV networks during the war. His and Naomi's surviving daughter, Jordan, was there, but I guess her husband had stayed home with the kids. Cute boys. Jake and Marcus. Cassie's daughter, Faith Aftran Chambers, was living with her father, of course. He and Cassie didn't speak much since he won custody in the divorce. Peter was there with Nora. Eva had disappeared long before the war, and reemerged as a guerilla leader during the invasion. She and her group were captured and converted to the other side. Her body was found in an enemy uniform after the big counterattack that destroyed their planet-side beachhead. Long before that, Peter had gone back to Nora. Without Marco, Peter and Eva found they just didn't have much in common anymore.

And of course the Berensens were missing. About eight years ago, on the anniversary of the date Jake and the others had left, Steve had wrapped his car around a telephone pole near the cemetery where Tom's memorial had been placed. The medical examiner found his blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit, and he showed signs of severe opiate abuse. Two days later, Jean had lain down in her bed after swallowing a whole bottle of pills. Two more losses I had to struggle not to lay at Jake's feet.

So there we were, two not-so-young women, and four middle-aged parents, anxiously wondering what news had come of our long vanished children, sister and comrades. That was the only reason I could think of for all of us to be called together like this. About fifteen minutes after my own arrival, two soldiers in full combat gear entered the room, swept through checking all the angles, then one spoke into the comm-band on his wrist. Four large men and two women came next, all in suits with the visors that wrapped around their eyes and ears and marked out security agents the way sunglasses and coiled wire earpieces used to back before anyone knew about aliens, before our kids' fight that was now known as the First Alien War. The security personnel spread out to cover all angles of the room, and a silver-haired man came next, with two more guards following him, who took up position on either side of the door.

We all recognized him, of course. "Director Davidson," Peter stammered after a moment of silence, during which Cassie refused to meet the director's eye, Naomi clamped her lips together and gave him a glare that should have knocked him flat, and the rest of us sat dead in our seats, astonished to be in the same room with the man who ran the country, for all intents and purposes, as Director of Extraplanetary Security. "It's a huge honor to meet you, sir." Naomi snorted loudly, and Cassie, though too polite to say so out loud, looked as if she agreed with her lost friend's mother.

"I'm very sorry to meet you all under these circumstances," he began. His voice was naturally harsh, but he seemed to be trying to be nice. "With the current relatively mild threat situation, the decision has been made to downgrade the security classification on a piece of intelligence obtained during the fighting, at least to the point that it can be revealed to the next of kin of the identified personnel.

Of course. Word on the fates of the Animorphs. The only reason we'd all be called together here. The director went on to describe the discovery of the Andalites that the Enemy had launched an advance party into Andalite space not long after the end of the first war. That advance party had contained powerful weapons and high-ranking personnel, and it was believed to be capable of converting large numbers to the Enemy's side. This Enemy unit had base themselves in a part of space the Andalite forces did not dare enter, and had taken possession and converted the crew of a Yeerk Blade ship that had escaped after the First Alien War. They were preparing to spearhead an invasion, but were mysteriously destroyed. Something called a Saario Rip by the Andalites had brought the wreckage of the Blade Ship into Andalite space, where it was recovered with its log and computers intact. The last auto-log entry had been forwarded to the humans as a courtesy.

One of his henchmen set up a holojector and we saw what looked like a screen-view of a Blade ship's bridge. The human-looking crew was staring at a screen, which showed a smaller ship's bridge. Sitting at the controls on the screen was a Taxxon and a human I did not recognize. The apparent leader of the Blade ship crew said "So you come from the Federation, do you? And where is Captain Picard?"

"I have always thought of myself as more of a Captain Kirk," the human on screen replied after a glance to the side. He didn't sound like he knew what he was talking about at all.

In the ensuing dialogue, the human identified himself as a Yeerk, as did the Blade ship crewman. After some hedging and bluffing, the human on screen confessed that they had fled the Andalite fleet and that the Yeerk Empire was destroyed, that they had been searching for their comrades in the Blade ship. Then some more dialogue ensued that was all scrambled. The Director told us that it had been censored as it was "a non-pertinent exchange of classified information relating to the nature of the Enemy from the Second Alien War."

"This is the relevant portion," he added as a horrible sounding voice boomed out.

"..Step into view, Jake the Yeerk Killer. I know you are there, I feel your mind." Jake stepped out onto the view of the screen, as on the Blade ship, an adult Andalite moved up to face the other ship. Along with Jake, I could see Tobias, Rachel and Marco also coming into the field of view, glaring with horror at the Andalite. It had been changed – some hideous mouth-like opening had been added to the face so similar to my Elfangor's. It had to be Ax. The kids had gone looking for him and found – this.

I didn't care. I concentrated on staring at my son, in the back of the group. He still had that hard, blank expression on his face, and was directing that hawk-glare at the monster made of his best friend. He looked the same. Not much older than when he left, hair a little shaggier, maybe.

Jake asked the strange human if they could shoot, and his reply sounded like it would have been futile. He looked at Rachel and Tobias and turned to his best friend and asked him some private joke about crazy decisions, and Marco nodded with a sick expression. Then a strange, reckless wild smile crossed Jake's face.

"Full emergency power to the engines," he ordered. "Ram the Blade ship."

Someone in the room gasped. Maybe it was me. I stared at the image of the Yeerk bridge erupting into a panicked confusion, with the hideous version of Ax, standing there stunned. I only had eyes for the image of the Animorphs' ship, saw Tobias and Rachel share a quick look and reach out to grasp each other's hands as the Taxxon – Arbron, I suppose – jabbed at a control panel with his claws. A moment later, the image on the screen disappeared as fires and explosions broke out on the Yeerk bridge, and a section of the bulkhead suddenly ripped open, exposing them to space. The air and crew shot out the hole, and I could see the broken remnants of a smaller ship in the space outside, being consumed by brief flames as explosions tore it apart and were quickly snuffed in the airless void.

"Other sensory data from the wreckage of the Blade ship shows the smaller craft which rammed it was utterly destroyed," Director Davidson told us as the image vanished and his minion began packing the holojector. He went on with a speech about how the courageous and heroic sacrifice of our brave sons and daughter had bought the Andalite-Human alliance time to prepare and had prevented the Enemy from attacking us unawares. That the Enemy had proceeded more cautiously after the loss of the Blade Ship and revealed its nature to the Andalites, allowing them to warn Earth and giving our forces a fighting chance.

When he said something to Cassie about making their actions public, and promising his "personal and official support" for whatever monument to their heroic deeds she thought appropriate, I stood up. The guards tensed and looked my way, and the Director appeared a little startled. I had not said a word since he entered. I ignored them and walked to the door. The female guard stepped up to bar my exit, and I turned back to the director.

"Thank you, Director, for your information. I don't think I need to be here for anything else. I am sure that whatever arrangements Naomi and Peter wish will be fine." I stared at him, before adding "May I please go, or is there anything else you have to tell us?" He shook his head and made a gesture and the guards moved slightly, their new stance making it clear they would not stop me.

Back in my house, an hour later, after clearing all the security out of the building and catching transport home, I sat down with a book and cup of tea, but didn't touch either. I just kept thinking of Jake and how he had sacrificed his life and his friends right along with them. I was right all those years ago. I thought. You were happy to find a way to go out with a bang. So what if you killed everyone who cared about you doing it? Big Jake, the Animorph-Killer. There had been no need for all of them to die – he could have rammed the ship all by himself. The damage would have been the same if one crazy human or four had been aboard.

Deep down inside, though, I knew it didn't really matter. Even if they had stayed, the Second War would still have come to Earth. It would have touched Tobias and Rachel and probably Marco too. It had touched everyone, and they would not have been spared in the fighting. If you looked at it a certain way, maybe it was better they died holding hands in the company of their friends, rather than in the ruins of the lives they had tried to build after the war. Naomi and I had long ago mourned our daughter and son as lost, and she had mourned another daughter killed in the bombardments. Better than adding our mutual grandchildren to that list, or having to watch them die. Or better the kids had died young, before their careers or relationship failed. Maybe Marco would have gone broke and been one of those celebrity failures they used to profile on cable TV.

And maybe they would have survived. Maybe they would have found some better means to fight off the Enemy. Maybe Marco's money and his father's technological skills and his mother's tactical acumen, could have developed a superweapon, if that family had stayed intact. Maybe if Rachel and Tobias had fought the Enemy hand to hand or claw to claw, instead of as spectators on a hijacked alien ship, they'd have found some weakness. Maybe with their leadership, the International Morphing Command could have gone into the history books as the mission that stopped the Second Invasion at the beginning, instead of the heroic failure of their doomed assassination raid against the Enemy headquarters.

Maybe if I hadn't walked home alone that night as a girl, I'd have never been captured by aliens, and none of them, Yeerks or Andalites or the Enemy would have ever heard of Earth...maybe if I dug down the rest of the way below the basement of my house. My house, on the spot where Elfangor and I had come to Earth. Where a grove of trees once stood, which had later been zoned for construction that was never finished, when the Yeerks destroyed the town. My house, over the spot where Elfangor told me he had buried a powerful ancient device, when we had fled to Earth more than 30 years ago. Maybe…

END

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Okay, author's note: I don't want to explain too much, because if you need it, I didn't tell the story right. I just want to clarify my take on Jake's post-war issues, and why he's the same in my story as in the real books. My view is that while grief for Rachel and guilt towards Tobias played a role in his peacetime blues, I feel it was more about being adrift without the war and having trouble making the adjustment to normal life. I believe that was the point KAA was trying to make in her post-series explanation letter about the effects of the war. Loren pretty much narrates my view and reasons for Jake's reaction and why he does what he does on the last mission. She also explains my view of Tobias' disillusionment with Jake. Again, like I said about Jake, the loss of Rachel plays a part, but for Tobias, who stuck up for Cassie and Ax when they betrayed the cause by giving up the morphing cube and contacting the Andalites, I believe his view was teammates - first, the cause - second. When Jake sacrificed Rachel the way a general sacrifices a soldier, it violated Tobias' perception. THAT'S why I think he went off alone in the real series: Aside from the two teammates he was closest to being gone, his one-time hero had destroyed his "family". For Tobias, in book 49, families take a bullet for each other, they don't sacrifice members like pawns. Elfangor told him the Animorphs would be his new family, and Jake betrayed that promise. In my story, though the actions had a happier result thanks to Loren's intervention, Jake still committed the same betrayal, and still hurt Tobias. True, he's dealing better, thanks to the connections to humanity he did not have after the war in the books, but he's remaking his ideal family with Loren and Rachel, and Jake definitely is on the outside of that, as far as he is concerned.