Random notes: The definition of Kali I gave on my characters page was "dark goddess" but smart me has learned since then that Kali is actually the Hindu goddess of destruction. She wears a necklace of skulls around her neck and is smeared with blood. While unintentional, this is pretty much a good image for Kali, so I'm please with myself. ^_^ Back to your regularly scheduled fic.
"All right," I said, holding the print-out that Kali had handed me. "This is an approximate map of the Yeerk pool as mapped by the Andalites. Apparently they all have generally the same layout, which seems rather stupid to me, but..."
"Huh? Why's that?" Ari asked.
I could feel myself smirking. "Because it makes them so much easier to attack when you know where everything is."
"Oh," she said. "So the Kadrona is here," she pointed to a spot on the map. "And Kali's going to come up with some explosives to blow it to smithereens. I'm not sure I even want to know where she got the chemicals at...."
"Probably stole them from the science lab," I said helpfully. "At least most of them. In any event, we're going to need to get someone to sneak the explosives in there somehow..." I frowned. "Although the Kadrona has to be pretty well guarded. Someone won't be able to just waltz in there and set up the explosives."
Ari frowned. "At the risk of sounding cliché, how about a distraction?"
I snapped my fingers. "Good! I can work with that. Four of us can wreak as much havoc as possible while someone else sneaks into the Kadrona room. It'll have to be someone who can hook up the explosives properly, and hopefully with a morph big enough to carry the stuff but small enough not to be too conspicuous. Ari, do you remember what morphs everyone has so far?"
Her memory tended to be much better than mine; I also hadn't been paying much attention when everyone had been discussing the morphs they had and the different possibilities.
"Kali has the panther- you saw that..." she frowned. "I've got an elephant; Tala has an eagle and a wolf; and Jenny has a horse."
A little light bulb when on while she was talking. "Hang on, I'm going to go give Kali a ring," I said, hopping up and digging for my cell phone in my backpack.
"Stop, stop," Ari said. "Please don't forget that the phone lines could be tapped for all we know."
"Oh, right..." This secrecy thing is really hard. "I'll be right back, then," I conceded, grabbing my running shoes and heading for Kali's place.
Twenty minutes later, I arrived back at the semi-secluded forest location where Ari and I were holding our secret pow-wow planning meeting. Thing. Yeah. So anyway, I probably looked a bit wild, since I was now sweaty and my hair was all over, and I could tell my face was red...
"New addition to plan! We're going to add some nice chemicals to the pool!" I cackled to Ari. "So this is Plan A."
"Okay, I'm listening," Ari prompted.
"Two bird morphs. Ideally Tala will be the first, since she can carry a larger load with her eagle morph. Kali said she'd like to be the second. Tala will carry the explosives and set them up in the back room. Kali will have a plastic bag of some really nasty chemicals. When she flies over the pool, she'll use her talons to pierce the bag. We actually don't know how effective the stuff will be since it's going to be watered down a lot. Depends on how big the pool is and some other stuff. We're also not sure of the effect on the Yeerks, but at the least we think there will be some very sick blobs.
"But all this isn't going to work without some distraction, and that's where you, me, and Jenny come in. We have to wreak as much havoc as possible to keep the Yeerks from just noticing Kali and Tala and shooting them down. Not to mention the Kadrona probably has at least light guards under normal circumstances, so Tala would never get the stuff in there and set up unless we create a panic."
"All right," Ari agreed. "So what's Plan B?"
"Plan B is only to be employed in the utmost of bad circumstances."
"Well, what is it?"
"Drop what you're doing, don't worry about anyone else, and run like hell."
********
"We're all going to die," Jenny stated, as we crouched outside the school (which had the most easily accessible entrance to the pool.)
"Oh, no we're not," I replied. I was beginning to think that whining was Jenny's way of dealing with stress.
"This plan could so easily go wrong," Jenny said. "Murphy's law, you know. Anything that can go wrong, will. Murphy's law of battle: battle plans rarely survive the first encounter with the enemy."
Strike that. Whining was definitely her way of dealing with stress.
"Andy," she continued, "I wish I could be brave like you..."
"Hey," Tala interrupted. "It takes an incredible amount of courage to be here tonight from all of us. Maybe you especially. If something happens tonight, you're the one who will lose the most because you have the best life of any of us."
It was true. Tala was an orphan. My brother was certifiably insane and my parents divorced- directly or indirectly as the result of the stress of dealing with my brother. Ari had been uprooted so many times in her childhood she had trouble making friends. Kali was abused when she was younger until her father was killed in a car crash and had serious self-esteem issues. Jenny had a fairly normal family, especially compared to the rest of us. I'd had contact with her parents a couple of times and liked them immensely, because they were so warm and friendly.
I decided (well, with the help of Ari elbowing me and giving me a significant look) that now would be a good time to pick up where Tala had left off. "Right," I agreed. "First off, I'm shaking in my boots too, I just don't show it.
"Who was it that made that speech 'courage is not an absence of fear'? Well, it's true. Courage is not at all the same as an absence of fear. It's knowing all the wonderful things you have to lose, like your friends and family, and still doing what you have to do. Courage is the girl who joined our swim team because she's hydrophobic and wants to get over that. Courage is a gay guy in school who comes to school every day and deals with the pain of the insults. And courage is a girl who has a wonderful family and friends, and risks fighting evil slugs. She knows she could be taken over and then have to watch her family every night and never be able to truly hug them or touch them or talk to them. That's courage."
I finally wound down and looked at Jenny, who was tentatively smiling (and bright red.)
"All right," she said. "Let's go kick Yeerk butt."
"All right," I said, holding the print-out that Kali had handed me. "This is an approximate map of the Yeerk pool as mapped by the Andalites. Apparently they all have generally the same layout, which seems rather stupid to me, but..."
"Huh? Why's that?" Ari asked.
I could feel myself smirking. "Because it makes them so much easier to attack when you know where everything is."
"Oh," she said. "So the Kadrona is here," she pointed to a spot on the map. "And Kali's going to come up with some explosives to blow it to smithereens. I'm not sure I even want to know where she got the chemicals at...."
"Probably stole them from the science lab," I said helpfully. "At least most of them. In any event, we're going to need to get someone to sneak the explosives in there somehow..." I frowned. "Although the Kadrona has to be pretty well guarded. Someone won't be able to just waltz in there and set up the explosives."
Ari frowned. "At the risk of sounding cliché, how about a distraction?"
I snapped my fingers. "Good! I can work with that. Four of us can wreak as much havoc as possible while someone else sneaks into the Kadrona room. It'll have to be someone who can hook up the explosives properly, and hopefully with a morph big enough to carry the stuff but small enough not to be too conspicuous. Ari, do you remember what morphs everyone has so far?"
Her memory tended to be much better than mine; I also hadn't been paying much attention when everyone had been discussing the morphs they had and the different possibilities.
"Kali has the panther- you saw that..." she frowned. "I've got an elephant; Tala has an eagle and a wolf; and Jenny has a horse."
A little light bulb when on while she was talking. "Hang on, I'm going to go give Kali a ring," I said, hopping up and digging for my cell phone in my backpack.
"Stop, stop," Ari said. "Please don't forget that the phone lines could be tapped for all we know."
"Oh, right..." This secrecy thing is really hard. "I'll be right back, then," I conceded, grabbing my running shoes and heading for Kali's place.
Twenty minutes later, I arrived back at the semi-secluded forest location where Ari and I were holding our secret pow-wow planning meeting. Thing. Yeah. So anyway, I probably looked a bit wild, since I was now sweaty and my hair was all over, and I could tell my face was red...
"New addition to plan! We're going to add some nice chemicals to the pool!" I cackled to Ari. "So this is Plan A."
"Okay, I'm listening," Ari prompted.
"Two bird morphs. Ideally Tala will be the first, since she can carry a larger load with her eagle morph. Kali said she'd like to be the second. Tala will carry the explosives and set them up in the back room. Kali will have a plastic bag of some really nasty chemicals. When she flies over the pool, she'll use her talons to pierce the bag. We actually don't know how effective the stuff will be since it's going to be watered down a lot. Depends on how big the pool is and some other stuff. We're also not sure of the effect on the Yeerks, but at the least we think there will be some very sick blobs.
"But all this isn't going to work without some distraction, and that's where you, me, and Jenny come in. We have to wreak as much havoc as possible to keep the Yeerks from just noticing Kali and Tala and shooting them down. Not to mention the Kadrona probably has at least light guards under normal circumstances, so Tala would never get the stuff in there and set up unless we create a panic."
"All right," Ari agreed. "So what's Plan B?"
"Plan B is only to be employed in the utmost of bad circumstances."
"Well, what is it?"
"Drop what you're doing, don't worry about anyone else, and run like hell."
********
"We're all going to die," Jenny stated, as we crouched outside the school (which had the most easily accessible entrance to the pool.)
"Oh, no we're not," I replied. I was beginning to think that whining was Jenny's way of dealing with stress.
"This plan could so easily go wrong," Jenny said. "Murphy's law, you know. Anything that can go wrong, will. Murphy's law of battle: battle plans rarely survive the first encounter with the enemy."
Strike that. Whining was definitely her way of dealing with stress.
"Andy," she continued, "I wish I could be brave like you..."
"Hey," Tala interrupted. "It takes an incredible amount of courage to be here tonight from all of us. Maybe you especially. If something happens tonight, you're the one who will lose the most because you have the best life of any of us."
It was true. Tala was an orphan. My brother was certifiably insane and my parents divorced- directly or indirectly as the result of the stress of dealing with my brother. Ari had been uprooted so many times in her childhood she had trouble making friends. Kali was abused when she was younger until her father was killed in a car crash and had serious self-esteem issues. Jenny had a fairly normal family, especially compared to the rest of us. I'd had contact with her parents a couple of times and liked them immensely, because they were so warm and friendly.
I decided (well, with the help of Ari elbowing me and giving me a significant look) that now would be a good time to pick up where Tala had left off. "Right," I agreed. "First off, I'm shaking in my boots too, I just don't show it.
"Who was it that made that speech 'courage is not an absence of fear'? Well, it's true. Courage is not at all the same as an absence of fear. It's knowing all the wonderful things you have to lose, like your friends and family, and still doing what you have to do. Courage is the girl who joined our swim team because she's hydrophobic and wants to get over that. Courage is a gay guy in school who comes to school every day and deals with the pain of the insults. And courage is a girl who has a wonderful family and friends, and risks fighting evil slugs. She knows she could be taken over and then have to watch her family every night and never be able to truly hug them or touch them or talk to them. That's courage."
I finally wound down and looked at Jenny, who was tentatively smiling (and bright red.)
"All right," she said. "Let's go kick Yeerk butt."