Chapter 25

(Rae)

"Look, we have to stop this."

I broke the circle and I ran up to the general.

"Get your men out of there, they'll never make it out alive." I told him.

The General wagged a big, stubby finger at me.

"That's not your decision to make, little girl. Our soldiers know that there have to be sacrifices made in order to-"

"But our vision, we just saw my Mom and Uncle Marco dead too! You know you can't let them die!"

The general twisted his face up, I know he didn't like what I was saying to him.

"Ok kid, what do you propose, to do." He wiped the sweat off of his face with his hand.

"We have to turn back time."

The general laughed. "Hahaha. There's no way you kids can turn back time far enough to stop them from getting kidnapped…"

We all just gave him a stare.

"Is there?" he looked flabbergasted.

"Just watch" We grabbed hands again. "I have the perfect time in mind"

First the room started to spin around. Slowly at first, like a top, but then it went faster and faster and faster. It felt like we were ripping time itself apart. Little pulses of light started to streak around us…and it started to feel really hot. Hotter than a day at the beach.

Suddenly, we were gone off of the spaccship!

And to another place…

When the room finally stopped spinning, we got our bearings and looked around. The place we were at was barren, military-like.

What are we doing here? Where are we?

At first the voices were dim, but as we came into existence during this period of time, the voices became louder.

"How's everything going, tennis champ?"

"Tennis Champ? Did you know about this beforehand? Dad!"

"Hey baby. Ignore him. You look wonderful."

"Wow, I didn't expect to hear from you guys so soon, I was pretty sure that the government would hide you guys forever."

"Oh don't worry, they're doing that, but we just needed to check in and see how our babies were doing."

"Mom, I'm not a baby. I'm almost thirteen! A teenager!"

"Rae…" "Well, anyway, where's the rest of the gang?"

"Oh, Grandma and Grandpa are upstairs giving Tommy and Melissa baths."

"Well, we'll give you guys a call another time. Just remember that we love you."

"I love you guys too…be safe…. what ever you're doing."

"How did she become such a piece of work so fast?"

I remembered this conversation! It was the last one I had with my parents before Mom and Uncle Marco got kidnapped!

I looked around. Mom and Dad were staring at the blank screen. My friends were still similarly disoriented. No way was I just talking to my parents while another "me" was standing here!

Well you do know the hazards of time travel…

"Mom, Dad?" I sort of screamed from across the room. They turned around with a shock.

"Rachel?! How can you be here! We were just talking to you back home!"

"Well, let's just say it's complicated. Really complicated." I tried to explain

"How do we know it's really you?" Dad said with a frown. Dad was skeptical about this, me being here.

"Mom, remember the top step on the stairs in the house. No one can ever fix it right and I always trip over it!" I pointed out. "Who else would know about that?"

Mom and Dad shared glances. It looked like they believed me. Yes! "Ellimist?" She finally asked.

"No, the Precognitics!" Jon said with pride. Everyone ignored him though.

"Um, Rachel, what is HE doing in the group?" Dad pointed at Derrick.

"Do we really need to get into that?" I started to moan.

"Yes" Dad said

"It's ok Mr. B., I understand" Derrick bowed his head.

"We came from the future to tell you something very important. Mom, you cannot go into space today." I flatly said.

"Why not" Dad asked.

"You will be kidnapped, tortured, and killed." Becky blurted out.

And Dad, you'll fall off of the wagon.

They both looked shocked.

"No offense Mr. and Mrs. B, but do we look like we're joking around?" Tanya said respectfully.

I then realized we were still wearing the ugly outfits the Army gave us.

"So, how are we supposedly kidnapped?" Mom said.

"All they know in our world is that it's an inside job. Apparently the people that you trust the most will be the ones to betray you and capture you."

Dad looked confused for a second. Then it appeared as though a light clicked on in his head. "Nathan, Shawn, Michael, Wayne".

Mom shook her head. "No way they would betray us Jake. They were your first Xenowarfare students-kids, look out!" She screamed and pointed down the hall.

We turned around and saw 4 soldiers preparing to take out some sort of weapon from their holsters.

"Go hide in our quarters!" Mom and Dad said. Since we were situated closer to their living quarters than to the four soldiers trying to kill us, we RAN down the hallway as fast as we could.

Then I heard Mom and Dad morphing and Dracon Beams flying everywhere. I could hear a tiger's roar and a wolf's bark as they started to battle the soldiers.

There was some cursing, and more roaring as the soldiers went up against Mom and Dad. I couldn't tell who was winning,

ROAR! Tseww! Tseww!

Then we heard automatic gunfire. BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM.

Everything stopped.

"What do you think happened Rae?" Tanya asked, her voice full of fear.

"I don't know, but I have to find out. They're my parents, past timeline or not."

I decided to peek out of the crack in the door. I got the shock of my life as I looked down the hall.

Those four soldiers were dead, covered in dark red blood. Mom and Dad were also covered in blood, but they were in the process of demorphing. A big burly soldier helped him back into his wheelchair. There were more regular soldiers with guns pointed at the dead guys.

I stepped out of their room and into the lounge where all the commotion had taken place. Immediately Mom and Dad ran over to me and started to hug me, after they demorphed.

I wanted to puke. This whole scene was making me sick.

They were right, war IS hell.

Then a shock came to Mom's eyes. It seemed like she was remembering something.

"There are two of you in this timeline. You have to go back. Get your friends and tell them, otherwise your existence could be destroyed,"

I nodded solemly.

I knew what I had to do.

Sullenly, I went back over to my parents' sleeping quarters and told everyone else what was going on. We grabbed hands and that familiar dizzy feeling overtook everyone. The room started spinning around and around and around. Pulses of light wrapped around us. So did the heat. Then we were gone.

(Esplin)

Ah, we had them. There was nothing that anyone could do about it. I gazed out at the stars from the bridge of the Blade Ship. Edriss was proud of me, I know she was. I hadn't screwed this one up at all.

Speaking of Edriss, she was coming up to the bridge. It seemed she had a message for me.

"We've waterboarded both Cassie and Marco, but they have yet to divulge any information."

"Well maybe I should pay them a personal visit. You know how effective I can be against the humans."

"Not really, I was the one who lived among them for all of those years."

I rolled my eyes. Did she really have to point out every single technicality?

"Let's just go visit the humans, shall we?" I said.

"We're not going to talk about what happened the other night?" Edriss inquired

"There is nothing to talk about." I said succinctly.

"So you're just going to sit here and pretend like it never happened. Why do I bother?"

She stalked off ahead of me towards the East Bay, where the ones they call Cassie and Marco were being held.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Perhaps it was because she felt the human emotion of 'anger' from being with me. Well, you know, that was okay. She made me feel angry most of the time as well. The power she exhibited over others. Her sense of control of situations. It all, shall we say, pissed me off, but that's what kept me coming back to her…

Finally, we arrived at East Bay. The waterboarding table was empty.

I decided to play 'nice'

"Hi Marco and Cassie"

I heard silence from their cells.

"You know, I've been waiting a long time to finally meet you both, up close and personal."

"We'll never tell you anything, Yeerk scum." A male's voice said, weakly. I assumed it to be Marco.

"Well, well, it looks like someone has an opinion." I made my way over to his cell and peeked inside.

The soldiers had done a good job on him. There were bruises everywhere on his body, and both his eyes were swollen shut. It didn't look like he could move exceptionally well.

However, the man was full of surprises.

As I opened up the door to his cell, something warm and sticky landed right onto my face.

Marco had spit on me!

"Oh, you'll pay for that you little stinking TERRAN" The human in me wanted to beat him up more.

The Yeerk in me controlled the human's urges, oh, I had a lot in store for this human.

"Oh no! NO! PLEASE! NO!" I could hear the other one scream. Cassie. My hate for that one was pretty strong as well. After all, she married Jake.

Edriss was preparing to waterboard her again when the emergency lights went on.

We heard screams of animals and looked towards the entrance.

Lions, tigers, wolves, and bears came to rush the entrance.

Edriss dropped Cassie and pulled out her hand-held Dracon. She started firing away at the animals. Most likely Xenowarriors.

"What are you standing there for Esplin? They're going to kill us! Do something!"

I pulled out my Dracon Beam and started to target random animals as well. But it was of no use. There were too many of them.

"THIS ISN"T GOING TO WORK, EDRISS!" I yelled

As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, everything went black. Pitch black.

I tried to look at myself, but I couldn't see my human host. Or Edriss.

What in the universe?

I wanted to call out to her, to make sure she was okay, but it was almost like we didn't exist.

Finally, we were dropped back into the East Bay.

But there were no animals.

Or Cassie.

Or Marco.

"Wha, what just happened?" I demanded of Edriss.

"I don't know! One minute we were being overrun by animals, the next, I'm alone here with you!"

I picked myself up and did a thorough examination of the East Bay. There were no traces of those Terrans anywhere.

Then something worse happened.

INCOMING, INCOMING, 1 MINUTE UNTIL IMACPT. The loudspeakers blared.

What? Something was coming for us?

"Edriss, did you hear that? Someone is shooting at us!"

"I know that, help me find a shield or something to deflect the missile, or we're dead!"

I went over to the all-too-familiar dials and controls. Nothing was working.

I tried in vain to pilot the ship away from its current position. But that didn't work either, the controls were stalled.

30 SECONDS UNTIL IMPACT.

"Edriss….it's no use. This is it."

"Esplin, there's something I have to tell you," she turned around to face me.

"Yes, there's something I have to tell you too."

"I love you," we both blurted out at the same time.

10, 9, 8, 7…

I pulled Edriss into an embrace. As soon as our lips touched, I could feel the impact of the missile on the ship.

And then everything went white.