Chapter 26

Note: As promised, this chapter is brought to you by Pringles! Buy them, eat them, and then poop them out!

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Jake

We flew back almost in complete silence. But this time, it was a happy and newly-energized silence. We had both gotten what we'd wanted to off our chest, and now it was time to finish what we came here to do.

As we approached the ship I told Tobias to circle around and watch the perimeter while I tried to sneak in. I had no idea if Crayak was still in there. And if he was still in there, I had no idea what he might be planning. I wasn't about to lose the last person who probably still believed in me, so I decided to go in by myself first and play it safe. After I landed about a hundred feet away I demorphed back into my human self. I got as close to the ship as I thought I could and began the all-too-familiar morphing process to cockroach.

The ship still had plenty of cracks from the crash in it's outer hull, and still a decent number of cracks and gaps in the floor. We'd tried to patch what we could, but after patching about the five hundredth hole or so we all found better things to do. And now I'm glad that we didn't finish patching them since it had left me a way in.

The ship looked just the way we had left it from the outside. The door was still open and the dim lights we had on were still shining. But, as I had been reminded recently, you can't judge what's on the inside just by looking at the outside.

As I finished my morph, I crawled through dirt particles as big as boulders until I felt the metal hull of the ship. I searched around for a crack to squeeze into and after a few moments of searching I easily found one. In I went.

It was total and utter confusion inside the ship from this angle. What I could only guess were the original Yeerk wiring and piping was mixed together with the renovated Andalite wiring and piping and all our handiwork was squished somewhere in-between the two. I raced around the maze of wires and pipes for a few minutes, getting periodic check-ins from Tobias every now and then, until I saw a giant, bright, white light. Every part of my roach body was telling me to get as far away from it as possible, but the roach wouldn't be our dominant small morph if we hadn't learned to control it by now. I raced ahead and tentatively poked my feelers and roach head out of the hole.

I knew I wouldn't be able to see anything but light, but it made the human part of me feel a little safer at least. After I pulled the rest of my body out of the hole, I let the roach take over and find me someplace dark to hide and demorph.

If you ever need to find a small, dark place, call in a roach. It's what they do best. After almost instantly racing over to a nice, dark corner I very slowly began to demorph.

Even with all the morphing we've done, we still really hadn't gotten a hold of how to morph the part of the body we needed first. But every now and again it would happen the way that we wanted. Right now I needed my human eyes and brain first, so that's the part of me that I really concentrated on. And sure enough, the first thing I could feel forming was my head. I'm sure it must have been a funny sight; a mostly human head on a foot-and-a half long cockroaches body. But that wasn't my main concern right now. My focus was on finding Crayak. But first I had to figure out where I was.

I took a good look around, which was hard since my neck joints hadn't really developed yet, and soon realized that I must have been under the main computer desk. Then, my thoughts focused on looking for Crayak as I slowly finished demorphing the rest of me.

The room looked pretty much exactly how we left it. The half melted pipe that Tobias had told me about on our way back was still exactly where he'd left it, as were the burn holes in the floor. I could only get a small glimpse into the bedroom from my vantage point, but I could see that all the mattresses were tossed aside just as I had left them. I continued looking out for anything unusual as I finally finished demorphing, but everything was just how we'd left it. I'd knew that I'd seen all I could have seen from this position. Now it was time to find out how good Crayak was at hiding.

I slowly and carefully got up and out into the open. I was prepared for the worst, half expecting to be trapped in Crayak's beam right there and then, but there was nothing to be prepared for. Either Crayak was hiding well or this room was empty. And if he was indeed hiding either here or in some other room, I was going to find him.

I knew that my human senses were nothing compared to a few of my other morphs, so I quickly began to morph to my signature morph, the tiger. Better dim-lighting sight, much better hearing, and a much better sense of smell were just what I'd need if Crayak was still here.

And so the hunt began. I thoroughly searched every nook and cranny of the ship, both in my tiger form and my human form, but there was nothing unusual anywhere to be found. After I was as sure as I could be that there was nothing else on our ship, I took one more quick trip around as a tiger before finally telling Tobias to come inside. I was still a bit tentative about it actually and I'm sure that he picked it up in my voice.

Don't worry Jake, he called back, if he's really in there somewhere we'll still find a way to kick his butt. It was a lame attempt at humor, but it made me feel like we were back in the good old days, if you want to call them that. It kind of reminded me of Marco in a way, and it was comforting to at least think that everyone was still with me. Marco, I said privately to myself, I'll get him for you. Don't worry.

Tobias took his time flying in, but once he finally did he asked the question that I'm sure he'd been wondering for some time now, Alright, what's the plan Jake?

"First," I said after I finished demorphing again, "I gotta go to the bathroom and get something to eat."

Sounds like a plan to me, Tobias responded with a chuckle.

"Then," I continued, getting more serious, "since you're the only one with any sort of first-hand experience with alien technology, I figure that you should be the one who handles the wiring. I'll morph to owl to keep watch and see if Crayak decides to show up."

No arguments from me, Tobias answered back. And after a moments silence he said, So, about that food…

So we both went and chose out something good to eat. I'd been eying a certain blueberry-pomegranate tube for some time now, but I always told myself to save it for something special. This could be my last meal for all I knew, so I decided that now would be as good as any. It was a refreshing change from the liquefied broccoli and cauliflower that I usually had. For some reason the Andalites that prepared our ship left us way more vegetables than anything else. I guess it had something to do with the whole eating grass thing, but I couldn't really complain. At least we had some kind of edible food.

Anyway, after eating my jelly-tasting fruit mix I took the bathroom break, like I said I would, and then morphed to owl. I flew out the still open door and perched up on the roof of the ship.

The great thing about being an owl is that your head can turn almost all the way around if it needs to. That eliminates the need to fly around in the dead night air to get a good look at things which was more than a little relief for me. I had done copious amounts of morphing today already and I was beginning to tire out. Not to mention that I probably still had some morphing left to do…

So I sat perched up on the roof, scanning for anything unusual and trying to come up with a plan for when Crayak either got here or reveled himself. I knew that someone would have to pull the switch, so that only left one person to try and lure him into the trap. And under no circumstances was I going to put Tobias in danger before me right now, so I naturally would be the one to lure him. I'd have to be as far away as I could be when Tobias throws the switch or else I might end up looking like a piece of burnt toast. But Crayak can't have any idea what's coming until after it happens, so turning around and starting to run would be out of the question. I'll just have to hope that luck is on my side and that I make it through ok. That's all I can really do.

When I had around fifteen minutes remaining in morph, Tobias and I quickly demorphed and remorphed. And no sooner had I gotten back to being an owl before I saw something in the distance. It was just a small dust cloud at first, but as it got closer I could begin to make out the shape. All it took was a few more seconds before I figured out what it was.

Tobias, I called out, I think… yeah. I think we've got company.

Tobias

We flew back in relative silence, but it was a much better silence than on the way there. We were both reinvigorated and ready to go. We'd gotten what we wanted off our chests, and now it was time to get down to business.

As the ship finally came into view, Jake was the first one to break our relative silence. Here's what we're going to do Tobias. I'm not sure if Crayak is still in there or not. But if he is, he's probably waiting for us so he could ambush us. That's why I'm going to morph to roach and try to sneak into the ship through one of the cracks in the hull. I need you to cover me from the air, and if anything that changes let me know.

Sounds good to me Jake, I replied. It didn't really sound all that good. But I knew that there weren't very many alternatives. It was better than anything that I'd come up with anyway.

So I watched as Jake landed, demorphed from his seagull morph, morphed into a cockroach, and eventually found a crack to slide into. I knew that I was getting close to my time limit as well, so I perched up on the roof of the ship and quickly demorphed. Then, I started to morph into my owl.

A seagull's or hawk's eyes aren't that great in the dark, so I knew that I'd need an owl's eyes to get a good look at what was going on. And the best part of it is that an owl can look almost 360 degrees around without having to move it's body. So I wouldn't have to endlessly flap my wings in the dead night air just to get a good view of the ship.

There was one bad side to the perch method though. I couldn't see inside the open door to the ship. But that wasn't a huge problem to correct. Every now and then I swooped down off the edge of the roof and flew past the door to get a peak inside.

I checked in with Jake every now and then. Mainly to see if he was still alive or captured by Crayak. I figured that it must be hard to navigate through that mess of wires and pipes, but even so he was sure taking a long time. Eventually though, I heard some shuffling and footsteps coming from inside the previously quiet ship. Jake, I called out, is that you making noise? I didn't realize at the time that he had no way of communicating back to me without letting anything on board know as well, so I called out again. Jake. Jake! Where are you. Are you alright?

Calm down Tobias, I finally heard Jake say, it's alright. That was me. I just couldn't say anything back because I didn't want the whole ship to hear. I felt a little stupid afterwards and really didn't say much for a little bit afterwards

After hearing Jake rummage through the entire ship half a dozen times I finally heard him say, Alright Tobias, I think the ship is clear.

He didn't seem too convinced himself, but with all of the searching he did and with all of the opportunities that Crayak had to attack him I think I was more convinced than he was. Either way, to try and inject some humor into the situation and relieve the tension, I replied, Don't worry Jake. If he's really in there somewhere we'll still find a way to kick his butt. I'm not sure what I expected to hear in return, but I felt like I made Jake feel a bit better even if he didn't respond. I demorphed from my owl and flew in the open door.

I perched on my familiar armrest and almost immediately asked, Alright, what's the plan Jake?

"First," He said after he finished demorphing out of his tiger morph, "I gotta go to the bathroom and get something to eat."

Sounds like a plan to me, I responded with a chuckle. It was then that I knew for sure my previous comment had some effect.

"Then," he continued, getting more serious, "since you're the only one with any sort of first-hand experience with alien technology, I figure that you should be the one who handles the wiring. I'll morph to owl to keep watch and see if Crayak decides to show up."

No arguments from me, I answered back. If Jake hadn't suggested that I work on the wiring I would've volunteered to do it anyway. But the wiring wasn't really the first thing on my mind at that point. So, I said after a short pause, about that food…

Both of us made a beeline for the food storage room. I'd gone without food for longer before, but I usually didn't have to go through this much while doing it. It had already been a hectic day and I had a feeling that it was only going to get worse.

But I brushed those feelings aside for now and concentrated on my food. I had learned very quickly that no matter what it said on the tube, it all pretty much tasted the same to me. So I didn't really have anything saved for a special occasion like I knew Jake had. I just grabbed the first tube that my talons landed on, fluttered over to the table, and started eating. Although I didn't have a special tube waiting for me, I did decide that this time I'd eat the whole tube instead of just half. I've been having to ration my small supply of meat almost since the day we'd left. The Andalites seemed to forget that humans eat other things besides vegetables, so I was low on meat to start with. But I had a feeling that this might be our last battle, so I forgot about the rationing part and just chowed down.

I eventually finished off the entire tube and tossed it aside. I hadn't felt this full for a long time, but the full feeling slowly slipped away as I morphed into my human self. As Jake went off to the bathroom, I went off to start working on the wiring.

I was hoping for the best, but expecting the worst as I pulled off the covering to the mainframe. When an Andalite tells you that something is very easy, it can range in difficulty anywhere from actually being really easy to having me almost rip out all my feathers in frustration. But after I finally got a good look at the wiring, I knew that I was going to be a lot closer to ripping out all my feathers than I had hoped.

There seemed to be about fifty different wires looking for a connection. Some were laid out straight, but most of them were tangled in a maze of knots. Sure, everything was color coded. But all the colors were all different shades of blue. Some were fairly easy to tell apart, but most were very close to one another. And that was just the beginning. There were a few different kinds of plugs and sockets as well. And it looked like the same shade of blue was used on different socket pairs. One pair was totally unique to itself, but the others seemed to fit into each other just fine. I knew that I had a lot of work ahead of me.

And so I began. All of the easy ones fell into place first, which left me with about thirty-five or so that seemed like they could all go in the same slot. But carefully I pressed on. Soon I was down to twenty-five, then twenty, fifteen, then down to ten. I had about five or six still left to go when I realized how long I'd been in morph. But before I could say anything though I heard Jake say, Tobias, it's getting close to our time limit. We should both demorph and remorph.

I was just about to tell you the same thing, I said as I felt the changes begin. After I'd morphed back into human, I went to get a drink of water and clear out my head to refocus. No sooner had I gotten back than I heard Jake say, Tobias, I think… yeah. I think we've got company.