Chapter 22
"Umm…Jake? We have a problem…" Marco called to me, standing about fifty feet away.
"You mean worse than we have now?" I asked, annoyed, because my brother was laying down dying and we were stranded light years away from home. "Where have you been?! We need to get somewhere that Tom can lay down at. He doesn't really need to rest, but I would think that he would want to because he's only DYING!" I exclaimed, sarcastically, as a stomped over to him.
"No," he said, when I was about ten feet away, "Just look." He motioned toward the ground near his feet.
I looked, and stepped back a couple of feet. I rubbed my eyes. I blinked. Laying there was a girl that looked about our age, maybe a big younger, with her eyes closed and her face pale. "That's a human," I said stupidly. "That is a human girl. From earth."
"That's right, genius, she says that she was kidnapped by some giant cockroach alien things who brought her here and sold her as an exotic animal. I just bought her, because they were planning on chopping her up and selling her separate parts. She was surprised enough to see me here, but as I brought her toward the group, she saw Rachel and recognized her…"
"Great…"
"Help lift her up," Marco ordered.
I bent down and grabbed her legs, and slowly we started to walk back to the rest of the group. "What's her name, anyway?"
"Sandra West."
"Okay," Cassie said as she caught sight of us and ran up, "Who is that?!"
"Her name is Sandra," Marco volunteered. "She was kidnapped by aliens and brought here to be sold. Now we are going to make sure she gets back."
"Life as an Animorph is just never easy, is it?" asked Cassie.
"And you just figured that out?" asked Marco.
Cassie rolled her eyes. "Guide thinks he knows where he can bring us to rest. Come on, let's go."
The thirteen of us followed Guide, Marco holding Sandra and me, Jeanne, and Rachel carrying Tom. On the way, Marco explained that he had thought he had heard a human voice calling for help, and thought he saw someone, and what had happened after he met Sandra.
The giant cockroaches and other aliens in the same ship that she was talking about were probably Skrit Na raiders, Ax commented. They have been known to kidnap people to sell, to perform medical operations on, and for their own reasons before. Yahal and Menderash nodded their agreement.
Guide turned to face us. "In here," he said, "This is where you rested before."
We walked inside, and Marco gently put down Sandra and I, Jeanne, and Rachel lifted down Tom. Jeanne sat next to Tom. Not long after, Sandra sat up and started to talk. She opened her eyes, but they were not focused.
"Haha, Dad, guess what? I just had the funniest dream. I dreamed that I was kidnapped by aliens and brought to another planet where I met Marco the Animorph! And then he brought me to meet the rest of them, and Rachel the dead one was there! It was really weird… The Marco guy was really cute though…" She brought up her hands and rubbed her eyes. Marco was grinning like he had just been told he won the lottery. Her eyes finally focused on him. "Oh, no, it wasn't a dream." She went pale. "I said all that out loud, didn't I?"
Marco swooped down and sat next to her. "It's okay, Sandra, Darling, I don't mind," he said with a leer.
Sandra scooted away, but I noticed that she was smiling. "Great," she said. "Now do you mind telling me why Rachel is alive, and introducing me to all these people?"
"Sure," Marco said. "I'm Marco, and that's Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Ax, Jeanne, Santorelli, General Doubleday, Toby, Yahal, Menderash, and the unconscious one is Tom." He pointed at each one of us as he said our names.
"Right…" Sandra said. "Wait… That's Tom as in your brother? Your dead brother?"
"Long story," volunteered Rachel. "Basically, Jake, Marco, Tobias, Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash left to go save Ax, but left Cassie behind. She went after them with Toby and the General, but they were hit by a meteor and sent back through time. The landed on the day of the last battle of humans versus the Yeerks, and managed to get me and Tom and come back forward through time. We picked up Ax a couple of days ago, and all of us hooked up. So, yes, Tom and I are alive although you thought we were dead. Do you get it?"
"I think so…" replied Sandra. She looked dazed. "What happened to Tom? Is he going to be okay?"
"I hope so." My voice cracked. "He was hurt really badly when we were shot at by the Garatron-"
"The Andalite-look-alikes," Marco cut in.
"-And we just don't know." I finished.
"I'm really sorry," she said.
Cassie stepped forward. "If he gets enough rest, he should be fine. What I'm really worried about is his head. You said that he might have hit it when he fell. It's bad that he's been out for so long." She took my hand. "We'll try though."
Everybody was silent for a few moments, but the silence was finally broken by an excited screech from Jeanne.
"He moved!" she said. "His eye twitched, and he moved his head, and then he became still again."
Cassie and I rushed to Tom's side. Once again, weakly, his eyes fluttered. Then, they opened.
"Tom?" I asked. "Can you hear me?"
His mouth moved, but no sound came out. He tried to sit up, but Cassie and Jeanne held him down firmly.
"Hey, Midget," Tom finally said. "Why do you look so worried?"
