Life at a military camp was actually much better than I thought. Granted, that may have been because I was actually a civilian who happened to be staying at a military camp for a short period of time. But for the short period of time that I was there, the soldiers seemed to be enjoying themselves. Of course, they weren't really looking forward to having to fight the Nothlit State to retake control of the city but they knew what they had to do, and if they had to pay the ultimate price to win then they would pay it. And the food was actually great, if a bit repetitive. All we ever had to eat were MREs, and you could only do so much to tweak and change things around before the food began feeling like same old, same old. But we couldn't exactly just walk down the street to the McDonald's at the corner, could we?
It wasn't all fun and games though. I spent the vast majority of my time at the camp being debriefed by both Tarash and Yibey. They both wanted to know everything that I had seen and heard during my time with the Nothlit State. They wanted to know who the leaders were aside from both Eldril and Immib. They wanted to know who reported to who, who was on the same level as their peers, how many fighters there were in the Yeerk Pool, and if they were determined to fight to the death. Tarash seemed to be particularly interested in that last bit because, and don't quote me on this because I only heard about this second-hand, she thought that she could talk the nothlits into laying down their arms. Yibey meanwhile was more interested in the pain and pleasure rays that Immib had used on me. I had no idea why the sub-visser was so interested about the pain and pleasure rays. Maybe he wanted to use them on someone that he didn't like.
I had always been awed by how well Tarash and Yibey complemented each other. If you only knew of them by reputation then you'd probably scratch your head wondering how and why Tarash became a Visser and Yibey only a sub-visser in the Yeerk Empire. Yibey seemed just like the kind of Yeerk who would make for a great Visser, especially under the invasion-era Empire, while Tarash would have been the sub-visser that could have been promoted if only she had the mettle to make the big decisions. Except in reality it was actually the other way around. Tarash was a shrewd and calculating Yeerk, and knew exactly when to go all in and when to dial it back, and it was actually that which got her noticed by the Yeerk high command and placed on the fast track to her Visser-ship (is that even a real word?) but despite that still lacked that killing edge that truly separated the Vissers from the other Yeerks. Meanwhile Yibey was ruthless to the point of being bloodthirsty, and the other Yeerks must have seen something in him (or not seen something in him) that turned them off of Yibey, and it wasn't until Yibey was assigned as Tarash's Vex'not that both of their Imperial careers finally took off.
It was pretty much a match made in heaven, or whatever Yeerks call the good place beyond. Tarash served to temper Yibey's bloodthirstiness while Yibey gave Tarash that killer touch that she sorely needed to finally rise up the ranks of the Vissers to become Visser Five. Yibey was rewarded himself, becoming Sub-visser Three-hundred-eighteen leading up to the final days of the Yeerk invasion. And as humans and Yeerks began to reconcile under the efforts of both former and current Controllers (and even Cassie the Animorph), Tarash and Yibey began to complement each other as they began to build the Human-Yeerk Alliance. Yibey served as the yang to Tarash's yin, the tactician to her strategist, the executor to her planner. They had done this same thing before during the Empire days, with Tarash calling the shots and Yibey making sure that things were being done officially as well as doing things himself in an unofficial capacity. One of the other things I've heard said to describe the Tarash-Yibey partnership is that Yibey is the warmonger to Tarash's peacemaker. Don't know how that really relates to them in the post-invasion world, but certainly they've both had lasting influences on each other. Yibey had helped to temper Tarash's optimism while Tarash had allowed Yibey to see that sometimes there is indeed good in people (and Yeerks). Like I said, a really good and fruitful relationship.
Anyway, when I wasn't busy being interrogated (or debriefed as they liked to call it) by Tarash and Yibey, I spent my time hanging around the cafeteria, or rather the mess hall. Sometimes Uncle Earl would be there and we would end up talking about all sorts of things from the actual fighting ("I'm sure that I'm not allowed to tell you anything about this, but we've finally managed to kick the Ns out of the library on the corner of 183 and Windsor and cut off the Pool from the airport") to sports ("Don't let your mother hear me say this, but I don't think the Steelers are gonna be able to win anything this year") to even my collection of old coins ("Even if someone tries to loot the house, Uncle, I put the coins and my other valuables in a place where they won't dare look"). But eventually the topic turned to my capture and subsequent escape from the Nothlit State as well as how both Mom and Dad had had to endure while I was behind enemy lines.
"I mean, I couldn't exactly lie to your folks about what happened to you, could I?" Uncle Earl told me. "I've never been a damned good liar, Jen, and besides, they deserved to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. I didn't know much about it though, to be honest. All I had to go on were what your friends Crash and Yippee told me, that the last time they saw you, you was hiding behind the ambulance before the smoke and the rockets hit."
"Oh, I wonder how Mom and Dad took to that," I said with a roll of my eyes.
"Come on, Jen, what else were you expecting? Of course they both went crazy!" Uncle Earl said in reply. "Your mother, Eve, she was bawling her eyes out, tearing her hair off! 'What's happened to my baby girl? You gotta find her, Earl! Promise me that you're going to find her!'" he said in a shrill imitation of Mom's trademark panicky voice. "But what really surprised me was how Adam, your father, took it. You know how your dad isn't really the type to blow up or raise his voice no matter the situation. But the Adam I talked to on the day you disappeared, he was nothing like the man I knew your father to be. I've never heard Adam that angry or furious before, swear on my life, and even then he still wasn't raising his voice at all. He told me pretty much the same thing your mother told me, but I could hear something in his voice that had me convinced that I had to bring you back to them alive and well or else I'm gonna be sorry. I'm telling you, Jen, I've never been scared of anything like that before. I've been to Iraq and Afghanistan, but nothing that ever happened to me over there gave me the chills quite like that day with your daddy."
"But you don't have to worry about Dad killing you anymore," I said. "Because you found me. And I'm right here, talking to you."
"I know," Uncle Earl nodded. "You know, you really should have been over at the Gap by now." The Gap, known more formally as Fort Indiantown Gap, was this big National Guard base over in Lebanon County where the people who had been evacuated from the city because of the Nothlit State's occupation and siege were being quartered until the city was finally declared safe and free of all enemies. "You should already be back at the Gap with your folks, Jen," Uncle Earl repeated. "But your little slippery slimy friends Crash and Yippee insisted—insisted!—on keeping you here for 'strategic reasons'. And they've got Major Kang's backing to do it. It's because out of all of us in this place right now, you are the only one to have seen the nothlits' HQ inside and out. Everyone wants to know what you and your little wormy friend in your head saw over there."
"But I already told them everything," I replied. "I told them everything I saw in there, everything I heard. I can't even remember how many times I've told people that that's all I know. I just don't know what else they want from me, and neither does Yemra."
"Well, your friends definitely think you're still keeping something from them," my uncle noted. "The way I see it, Jen, you can do one of two things. Either you can finally 'fess up and tell 'em what they really want to know, or you finally set the record straight and tell 'em you don't know nothin' no more."
"Oh, Uncle, believe me, I tried."
"In that case then it's definitely a problem on their side now," Uncle Earl said. "If they don't believe you now then they definitely won't believe you when you say it again."
After that conversation, Uncle Earl and I never talked about the reason why I was still at the camp again. We still talked about some of the more banal things. And both Tarash and Yibey still wanted to talk to me about everything that I had seen inside the Nothlit State HQ, but at least it was finally beginning to feel more like an actual conversation than an interrogation. This was how camp life was for me for the next few days. Life was good here, at least compared to when I was held by the nothlits. I could walk around wherever I wanted (so long as it was inside the camp, of course) and not have to spend all day cooped up inside my tent lying on my cot. Then, one morning, everything changed.
I remember being asleep when it happened. I was sound asleep, not dreaming of anything, when I felt myself being shaken awake. "What the hell is it?" I remember asking.
"Jen, Yemra, you gotta wake up," someone said. "The Nothlit State is gone. They've surrendered!"
"What?" I blubbered. I didn't bolt straight up on my cot like in the movies, but the strange and improbable combination of words that had entered my ears slithered around in my mind like an infesting Yeerk and piqued my interest all the same.
"The nothlits, they've surrendered," George Islington repeated himself as I rolled over to my back from my side.
"What? What do you mean, they surrendered?"
"They gave up! Waved the white flag. Threw in the towel. Laid down their arms. Gave up the fight," George said.
"I know what surrendering means, George," I muttered as I got up to a sitting position to face him. "What I meant to say was, why in the world did the nothlits surrender? I thought they were all about the 'fighting to the death' thing. Tarash talked them into surrendering, didn't she?"
"Well, she wishes that that could have happened," George—or was it Moxach?—replied. "But apparently they really didn't want to fight to the death. Not all of them anyway. And your killing of Immib may also have something to do with it. Immib's the real fanatic, you know? The one who makes sure everyone else is doing what Eldril wants them to do. Eldril's a pretty great Visser, don't get me wrong, but as a leader he needs someone like Immib to keep his troops motivated."
"Oh really? Okay, Immib's gone, but what about Eldril? Surely he's got something to say about this surrender."
"See, that's the thing. The nothlits claim that Eldril is gone. Nowhere to be found."
"No way. Really? How? And where the hell did he go?"
"I don't know. The nothlits didn't say. And something tells me that they don't know either. Anyway, time to get up, girls!" George said as he stood up from my bedside. "Rise and shine. Tarash and Yibey want to go to the Yeerk Pool ASAP, and they want the two of you with 'em. They want to see the cells, they want to see the barracks, and they want to see the Anti-Morphing Ray. Yibey really wants to see the Anti-Morphing Ray. And they were hoping that you could, you know, guide them around the place."
"You're kidding me, right?" I asked. "Shouldn't they both know the Pool like the backs of their hosts' hands?"
"Yeah, sure, that may be," George nodded. "But what if the nothlits changed around the Pool's layout so they could better defend it?"
"That is one big pile of bullshit, Moxach, and you know it," Yemra said in my voice. "Just let me get my boots on and then I'm going," I added once Yems had given me back control.
I laced up my boots and followed George/Moxach out of the tent and into the middle of the camp where a line of National Guard vehicles were lined up. "Here, wear this," he told me as he tossed me a bulletproof vest and a helmet. "National Guard says that the nothlits in the community center have already surrendered but there are still a few holdouts scattered about who might not have heard of the order to surrender or have chosen to ignore it," George explained. "Oh, and you're riding with the Visser today."
"What? Why?" But too late, George and Moxach were already gone, and I had no choice but to put on the vest and helmet. I cinched the vest as tight as I could around my body while still being able to breathe using the Velcro straps on the sides, and then I put the helmet onto my head and clasped together the chin straps. I don't know about anyone else but I've always enjoyed the sensation of putting on a cap or a helmet or any sort of headgear. I just feel safe. Maybe it's the sensation of the cap or the helmet sitting on top of my skull and brains, protecting it from external threats like the heat of the sun or flying shrapnel. Or maybe it's because Yemra's told me that she always feels like she's in a cocoon of coziness every time I put on a cap. Maybe it's a bit of both things.
Anyway, I managed to get my helmet on just as the soldier manning the machine gun on the roof of the Humvee thumped his hand on the roof and said to me, "Okay, miss, time to go! We gotta move!" I nodded my head and got inside the Humvee where I saw Emily sitting and apparently waiting for me. Seeing the Visser herself wasn't a surprise for me—Moxach had just told me that I was riding with her—but seeing her wearing a vest and a helmet over her full-length dress made me think of Emily as a teacher or librarian preparing for the apocalypse and not the leader of the Human-Yeerk Alliance. "Hello there, Visser," I said.
"Hello, Jen, Yemra," the Visser replied. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you and woken you up so early but we need your help. I don't know if Moxach has already told you this but since you are the only person in here to have been in the community center while it was occupied by the Nothlit State, we were hoping that you could help guide us through the place, show us where the nothlits stayed and where they held you captive."
"Oh," I said simply. "Um, well, I don't exactly really know where my cell was right now, but maybe when we get there and I see the tunnels and the rooms I'll probably remember."
"Thank you, Jen," Tarash said. "I know that we have asked a lot from you, and now I have to ask you this one last favor before I can let you return to your family. Is that all right with you?"
"Don't worry about it, Visser," I shrugged off. "Taking one for the team, right?"
A/N: So I'm finally approaching the end of this story. As in I am only two chapters away from finally wrapping this up. It's been a long journey, and if you've stuck around with me for the whole story after all these years then I want to say thank you. But don't worry, because there's still more to come from Jen and Yemra and the others. As always, feel free to leave a review or a comment if you've liked the story or even just this chapter. Thank you. — GR