"That's impossible," I said, looking out across the pool.
"So's what just happened to Rachel and Tom, but do you see me complaining, Jake?" asked Marco. Of course, the humour was just a cover. He was as confused as me about what we were seeing. The core of the Pool Ship -that we had now basically taken over- was a great big hulking Yeerk Pool. But I had drained the whole thing, Yeerks and all. As a diversion? How many lives had I sacrificed for a diversion?
And why were they all right in front of me, swimming through the sludge like they had never left?
"I mean it, Marco. I had them flushed. You can't tell me I dreamed that one up," I muttered darkly.
"Yeah. You're not creative enough," he joked. Anyone who hangs around Marco for long, if he doesn't annoy them to death, notices that he covers stress with jokes. Bad ones.
The wall beeped. "Prince Jake?" called Ax's human voice. I guess he had realised that Yeerk wall-comms weren't meant for thought-speak and morphed.
"This is so 'Enterprise'," said Marco, grinning as he walked over to the wall and pressed something. I had left all the techno stuff for him and Ax to deal with. "What's up, Ax?"
"I have encountered a section of the Yeerk's main computer memory that has been programmed in human code. I will require Marco's help in order to decode that section," Ax replied.
"Ax, are you telling me you can't hack C#?" I called back.
"'Hacking' it would be simple," he replied with the bristly tone Andalites use when they're offended. "But it would also be pointless. I must decrypt the section if I want the information it contains, but the entire code is made up of ones and zeroes. I assume there must be some pattern..."
"It's in binary?" exclaimed Marco, but he was smiling. "Those bastards! No Andalite could decrypt it because they don't even know what it is. The whole thing is arbitrary. On my way, Ax."
A few minutes passed while I watched the pool slosh and slither. Marco had barely had enough time to get up there when the wall beeped again. I looked at it, bewildered, for a moment, and then slapped randomly. Marco's voice came through, though at least an octave higher than before.
"Jake? You remember how you always told me your favourite part of the movie was right when everything went to hell?"
"I never meant it for real life too, Marco. Give me the quick version."
"There's an Andalite fleet a few light-hours away on their way to crispy- fry Earth and serve us up with a side o' slaw, what's left of the Blade Ship just got away, and there are way more Taxxons out there than there should be."
"What do you mean 'out there'?" I demanded.
"Uh, we landed the ship to try to get people inside. It's probably the safest place right now, but-"
"With an Andalite fleet on their way to... wait, why the hell would they send a fleet to destroy Earth?"
Ax's voice came over the speaker. "If I may say so, Prince Jake, it is actually a very small segment of the fleet, though of course even a few Andalite ships represent significant destructive power-"
"I meant the 'destroy Earth' part, Ax," I snapped, cutting him off.
"Because they've put everything into this," said Marco, with a deadened monotone instead of his usual 'up with people' sarcastic attitude. "Earth's the big one. They win, they have all the hosts they could ever need. Ever. And if they lose, they lose everything. So if the Andalites charbroil us..."
I wished Marco would stop saying things like that. Right now the one thing on my mind was just a week or two before war went hyper, when we had a barbecue at my house. The steaks had caught fire. It's stupid, but it's the truth. All I could see was that meat, flaming and getting smoke in my eyes.
"The hell with that," I said flatly. "Can we contact them?"
"Not while they remain in Z-Space. But we will have a window of approximately forty Earth minutes between their return to normal space and the earliest possible firing range. More if they dispatch fighters and enter formations, which is likely. This is an important operation, and they will make no mistakes."
"Ax?"
"Yes, Prince Jake?"
"Please tell me you don't approve of this."
"Of course not."
"Good. Any more Andalite prowess talk and I'll send you out there to take on the Taxxons yourself."
"Did I mention the part about extra Taxxons?" asked Marco.
"Yeah. How many more?"
"What's double times triple?" asked Marco.
"Hextuple," said Ax, helpfully.
"Okay. How are our guys holding up?"
"Pretty good. It would have been a massacre if the Pool Ship's cannon had worked, but so far everyone's okay. It's damned ugly, though. The troops found out that Taxxons sometimes turn on their injured, so they're just shooting to wound as many as possible," said Marco.
"But the Taxxons are between our guys and the Pool Ship?"
"They have formed a full perimeter," Ax told me.
"If we could just kill enough of them to get our guys inside, we'd have some time. I'm totally out of it, Marco. I can't think. We're in the Pool Ship, we've caught Visser One, and nothing makes sense."
"Really, Prince Jake, it isn't even a question of killing them. If we could simply delay their advance or break a path-"
"Ax, these are Taxxons. Hive worms. They're not going to be shoved aside. We'd lose half our guys just trying to run for it," Marco growled, and he's not much of a growler even when he tries.
And then I saw it. A light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, after three years fighting the Yeerks, my first guess at what that was would forever be a guy with a flamethrower. "Hive minds. Ax, how much of a hive are they?"
Ax seemed startled. "I don't know. On the Taxxon homeworld they say there is one mind that leads them, but here it may be a simple as a weak mind to mind link. They would, of course, have evolved over the years to survive without this queen mind. If one takes into account-"
I shut Ax off, mentally. I could save them. "Ax, I don't care if you have to promise the computer your soul and everyone else's, I want every single security thing on those doors ready to be opened and shut faster than I can give the command, and I want it ready in four minutes." Two to get there, two to morph.
"I... I..." he stuttered, uncertain.
"Ax, now would be a damn good time to say 'Yes, Prince Jake'."
"Yes, Prince Jake." I slapped the wall-comm off, probably, and ran for it. I knew where the main door was, more or less, and I was going to get there if God told me not to. I could do it. I could save them all. And it was only this one time. I was brain dead, exhausted, never so tired in all my life. But I couldn't stop going. If I waited, if I planned, it would be gone.
Some people say I'm courageous. I say I just know what has to be done and I do it. I guess there's some of Rachel in me, since we're cousins. And right now that flame was up, and I had to do what I could. I had to do what was right.
I passed Cassie by, heading down the hall. I skidded to a halt, ran back, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Jake," she started.
"Stay right here, will you, Cassie?" I was up, I was hyper, I was living on the next chance.
"Jake, I-"
"Seriously, right here. I meant what I said before, Cassie. I want someone to marry when I get back." I started up again, running so fast I could barely keep up with myself.
"I... Where are you going?" she called after me.
"To stop screwing up!" And then I left her behind.
A dropshaft later, I reached the main door. And then I started the morph. Cassie the best among us, but I managed to keep my vocal chords normal for as long as I could, and then stopped. I slapped the nearest wall-comm, and Ax confirmed he was ready.
"Twenty seconds and then open, Ax. Don't close it until you hear the order, got it?"
"Yes, Prince Jake." He wasn't bothering to ask questions, but I know he was wondering what I thought I could do. And I was glad, because I would rather not have to tell anyone. I had morphed most of the way into, and was now finishing, the morph I thought and wished and hoped I would never have to do again.
Not human or Leeran. We don't like copying sentient things without their permission, but I'd still do it in an emergency. This was much worse. On the other hand, it was the only way. And almost peaceful, really. Compared to a slaughter, at least.
My skin was now black and red, and though I was similar shape to my usual body, I was nothing like it inside. Weird bone structures and muscles and eyesight and a thousand other things. Especially the voice, which was why I kept my vocal chords for so long.
I had gone Howler.
The door snapped open like a cobra's jaws, and I ran through. The scarred battlefield around me was empty for about fifty feet, and then it was solid Taxxons. Somewhere beyond that, our own guys, were ready to give their lives to win this battle.
Fortunately for them, I wasn't ready. Not their lives, not if I could help it. I had time to fire off one massive thought-speak shout -Run for the ship!- and then I hit it. A great and terrible howl filled the air, defying sound, defying description. It must have been awful for everyone out there, but all the Taxxons heard it too, and passed it on, magnifying the effect a hundred-hundredfold, and they were thrown into the depths of madness.
I ran ahead at speeds Donovan Bailey only dreams of, driving a wedge of discord into the barrier. The Taxxons broke before me, scrambling on their dozens of legs in desperate attempts to get away. I stopped the howl for a second, and the troops rushed ahead with a lot more co-ordination than they had been managing while I was howling. I watched with eyes like night vision, infrared, and x-rays all built into my head, and when the Taxxons started to gather and charge again I howled.
I don't know how long I kept that up. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty, time was a blur. When they retreated, I stopped, and our guys made for the ship. When they charged I howled and drove them back. Eventually, when I couldn't see anyone left who would be safer in the ship than just running for it, I called out in thought-speak again.
I hope everyone's inside or on their way, because we're out of time. Not strictly true. I was just too amazingly exhausted to imagine another howl. I turned and ran for the ship, picking up someone who had fallen like a kid late for school grabs a lunch bag in mid-sprint. Getting to the opening, I thought-spoke through.
Ax! Close the door! Nothing. Ax! Close it, now! But he was too far away for thought-speak.
I guess one of the soldier guys heard me. He grabbed the edge of the door as he passed it, held on to stop himself, and yelled "Close the door!" I put in a final burst of speed, dashed through, and it snapped shut behind me, just a few seconds ahead of the tide of Taxxons.
The soldier guy kind of fell back against the door, and slid down until he was crouched on the floor, breathing hard. He looked up at the strange, not so terrible and yet very powerful face of the Howler I had become.
"I may not know what species you are, Moses," he gasped, "but thanks." I thought of the way the Taxxons had parted before me, and smiled. It didn't work- Howlers can't smile, so I demorphed. It freaked the guy out, that's for sure.
"So you kids are real."
"Yeah. Yeah, we're real. Ax, how long will the door hold against the Taxxons?"
"Without Dracon beams? Likely forever, or at least as long as it would take them to put together some sort of supergamma projection device out of the available sand outside." Andalite humour. It's worse than Marco on a bad day. "If they are armed, perhaps sixteen hours."
"And how long have we got before those Andalites show up to..." I looked at the assembled troops around me, venting tension. This had probably been the worst day of their life. Aliens were real, they finally found out. And they want your heads, and not in the usual way. Oddly enough, it's in a worse way. "...To take out the Yeerks?"
Marco's voice this time. "About four hours, maybe five. I can't read Yeerk, but I'm starting to get the hang of these displays."
"Okay." The dead tiredness was back, now that I was done. My voice was pretty flat, but I managed some volume. "Everyone here, this is your new home until further notice. You're probably all injured, and unfortunately most of you are going to have to live with it. Anyone who's really badly hurt, grab the nearest couple of people and get them to help you follow me."
"And why are we listening to a kid?" muttered someone nearby. The mother of all wrath rose up in me and I stomped over to him, looked him in the eye.
"Because if it weren't for me, you would have been infested by those aliens out there about three years ago, and there would have been nothing you could do about it." The guy didn't seem fazed. "And by the way, all your great army skills would have been really, really useful, because once they had shoved one of those slugs into you a gunpoint -the kind of guns that don't just kill, they vaporise- it would have been able to use them too, and you would have no control as it took in the rest of your family, and infested them too, leaving them to scream and cry in a corner of their own minds with no power to do anything at all for the rest of their lives. Got that?" I was about an inch away from the guy's face.
"Yes sir," said one of the other soldiers nearby, with a laugh.
I turned to him and snarled, my teeth shaping themselves into tiger fangs and back again. "I'm not a soldier. No rank, nothing. No 'sir'," I said, a little pleasantly. I turned back to the first guy. "Got it?"
"Fuck yes."
"Thanks. All injured, this way." I headed down the hall toward the dropshaft, and they followed.
[Notes] Muahaha! Verily thou art in the presence of He Who Updates When Least Expected! No? well, it was worth a shot. Yes, here it is, part two, and there will be more to come. Next chapter will jump back to the Ellimist's point of view for a bit, then back to an Animorph. I'm hoping to have a chapter for each of them, assuming that the plot lasts long enough. All reviews are welcome, though flamers should keep in mind that my math teacher has been teaching us voodoo.
"So's what just happened to Rachel and Tom, but do you see me complaining, Jake?" asked Marco. Of course, the humour was just a cover. He was as confused as me about what we were seeing. The core of the Pool Ship -that we had now basically taken over- was a great big hulking Yeerk Pool. But I had drained the whole thing, Yeerks and all. As a diversion? How many lives had I sacrificed for a diversion?
And why were they all right in front of me, swimming through the sludge like they had never left?
"I mean it, Marco. I had them flushed. You can't tell me I dreamed that one up," I muttered darkly.
"Yeah. You're not creative enough," he joked. Anyone who hangs around Marco for long, if he doesn't annoy them to death, notices that he covers stress with jokes. Bad ones.
The wall beeped. "Prince Jake?" called Ax's human voice. I guess he had realised that Yeerk wall-comms weren't meant for thought-speak and morphed.
"This is so 'Enterprise'," said Marco, grinning as he walked over to the wall and pressed something. I had left all the techno stuff for him and Ax to deal with. "What's up, Ax?"
"I have encountered a section of the Yeerk's main computer memory that has been programmed in human code. I will require Marco's help in order to decode that section," Ax replied.
"Ax, are you telling me you can't hack C#?" I called back.
"'Hacking' it would be simple," he replied with the bristly tone Andalites use when they're offended. "But it would also be pointless. I must decrypt the section if I want the information it contains, but the entire code is made up of ones and zeroes. I assume there must be some pattern..."
"It's in binary?" exclaimed Marco, but he was smiling. "Those bastards! No Andalite could decrypt it because they don't even know what it is. The whole thing is arbitrary. On my way, Ax."
A few minutes passed while I watched the pool slosh and slither. Marco had barely had enough time to get up there when the wall beeped again. I looked at it, bewildered, for a moment, and then slapped randomly. Marco's voice came through, though at least an octave higher than before.
"Jake? You remember how you always told me your favourite part of the movie was right when everything went to hell?"
"I never meant it for real life too, Marco. Give me the quick version."
"There's an Andalite fleet a few light-hours away on their way to crispy- fry Earth and serve us up with a side o' slaw, what's left of the Blade Ship just got away, and there are way more Taxxons out there than there should be."
"What do you mean 'out there'?" I demanded.
"Uh, we landed the ship to try to get people inside. It's probably the safest place right now, but-"
"With an Andalite fleet on their way to... wait, why the hell would they send a fleet to destroy Earth?"
Ax's voice came over the speaker. "If I may say so, Prince Jake, it is actually a very small segment of the fleet, though of course even a few Andalite ships represent significant destructive power-"
"I meant the 'destroy Earth' part, Ax," I snapped, cutting him off.
"Because they've put everything into this," said Marco, with a deadened monotone instead of his usual 'up with people' sarcastic attitude. "Earth's the big one. They win, they have all the hosts they could ever need. Ever. And if they lose, they lose everything. So if the Andalites charbroil us..."
I wished Marco would stop saying things like that. Right now the one thing on my mind was just a week or two before war went hyper, when we had a barbecue at my house. The steaks had caught fire. It's stupid, but it's the truth. All I could see was that meat, flaming and getting smoke in my eyes.
"The hell with that," I said flatly. "Can we contact them?"
"Not while they remain in Z-Space. But we will have a window of approximately forty Earth minutes between their return to normal space and the earliest possible firing range. More if they dispatch fighters and enter formations, which is likely. This is an important operation, and they will make no mistakes."
"Ax?"
"Yes, Prince Jake?"
"Please tell me you don't approve of this."
"Of course not."
"Good. Any more Andalite prowess talk and I'll send you out there to take on the Taxxons yourself."
"Did I mention the part about extra Taxxons?" asked Marco.
"Yeah. How many more?"
"What's double times triple?" asked Marco.
"Hextuple," said Ax, helpfully.
"Okay. How are our guys holding up?"
"Pretty good. It would have been a massacre if the Pool Ship's cannon had worked, but so far everyone's okay. It's damned ugly, though. The troops found out that Taxxons sometimes turn on their injured, so they're just shooting to wound as many as possible," said Marco.
"But the Taxxons are between our guys and the Pool Ship?"
"They have formed a full perimeter," Ax told me.
"If we could just kill enough of them to get our guys inside, we'd have some time. I'm totally out of it, Marco. I can't think. We're in the Pool Ship, we've caught Visser One, and nothing makes sense."
"Really, Prince Jake, it isn't even a question of killing them. If we could simply delay their advance or break a path-"
"Ax, these are Taxxons. Hive worms. They're not going to be shoved aside. We'd lose half our guys just trying to run for it," Marco growled, and he's not much of a growler even when he tries.
And then I saw it. A light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, after three years fighting the Yeerks, my first guess at what that was would forever be a guy with a flamethrower. "Hive minds. Ax, how much of a hive are they?"
Ax seemed startled. "I don't know. On the Taxxon homeworld they say there is one mind that leads them, but here it may be a simple as a weak mind to mind link. They would, of course, have evolved over the years to survive without this queen mind. If one takes into account-"
I shut Ax off, mentally. I could save them. "Ax, I don't care if you have to promise the computer your soul and everyone else's, I want every single security thing on those doors ready to be opened and shut faster than I can give the command, and I want it ready in four minutes." Two to get there, two to morph.
"I... I..." he stuttered, uncertain.
"Ax, now would be a damn good time to say 'Yes, Prince Jake'."
"Yes, Prince Jake." I slapped the wall-comm off, probably, and ran for it. I knew where the main door was, more or less, and I was going to get there if God told me not to. I could do it. I could save them all. And it was only this one time. I was brain dead, exhausted, never so tired in all my life. But I couldn't stop going. If I waited, if I planned, it would be gone.
Some people say I'm courageous. I say I just know what has to be done and I do it. I guess there's some of Rachel in me, since we're cousins. And right now that flame was up, and I had to do what I could. I had to do what was right.
I passed Cassie by, heading down the hall. I skidded to a halt, ran back, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Jake," she started.
"Stay right here, will you, Cassie?" I was up, I was hyper, I was living on the next chance.
"Jake, I-"
"Seriously, right here. I meant what I said before, Cassie. I want someone to marry when I get back." I started up again, running so fast I could barely keep up with myself.
"I... Where are you going?" she called after me.
"To stop screwing up!" And then I left her behind.
A dropshaft later, I reached the main door. And then I started the morph. Cassie the best among us, but I managed to keep my vocal chords normal for as long as I could, and then stopped. I slapped the nearest wall-comm, and Ax confirmed he was ready.
"Twenty seconds and then open, Ax. Don't close it until you hear the order, got it?"
"Yes, Prince Jake." He wasn't bothering to ask questions, but I know he was wondering what I thought I could do. And I was glad, because I would rather not have to tell anyone. I had morphed most of the way into, and was now finishing, the morph I thought and wished and hoped I would never have to do again.
Not human or Leeran. We don't like copying sentient things without their permission, but I'd still do it in an emergency. This was much worse. On the other hand, it was the only way. And almost peaceful, really. Compared to a slaughter, at least.
My skin was now black and red, and though I was similar shape to my usual body, I was nothing like it inside. Weird bone structures and muscles and eyesight and a thousand other things. Especially the voice, which was why I kept my vocal chords for so long.
I had gone Howler.
The door snapped open like a cobra's jaws, and I ran through. The scarred battlefield around me was empty for about fifty feet, and then it was solid Taxxons. Somewhere beyond that, our own guys, were ready to give their lives to win this battle.
Fortunately for them, I wasn't ready. Not their lives, not if I could help it. I had time to fire off one massive thought-speak shout -Run for the ship!- and then I hit it. A great and terrible howl filled the air, defying sound, defying description. It must have been awful for everyone out there, but all the Taxxons heard it too, and passed it on, magnifying the effect a hundred-hundredfold, and they were thrown into the depths of madness.
I ran ahead at speeds Donovan Bailey only dreams of, driving a wedge of discord into the barrier. The Taxxons broke before me, scrambling on their dozens of legs in desperate attempts to get away. I stopped the howl for a second, and the troops rushed ahead with a lot more co-ordination than they had been managing while I was howling. I watched with eyes like night vision, infrared, and x-rays all built into my head, and when the Taxxons started to gather and charge again I howled.
I don't know how long I kept that up. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty, time was a blur. When they retreated, I stopped, and our guys made for the ship. When they charged I howled and drove them back. Eventually, when I couldn't see anyone left who would be safer in the ship than just running for it, I called out in thought-speak again.
I hope everyone's inside or on their way, because we're out of time. Not strictly true. I was just too amazingly exhausted to imagine another howl. I turned and ran for the ship, picking up someone who had fallen like a kid late for school grabs a lunch bag in mid-sprint. Getting to the opening, I thought-spoke through.
Ax! Close the door! Nothing. Ax! Close it, now! But he was too far away for thought-speak.
I guess one of the soldier guys heard me. He grabbed the edge of the door as he passed it, held on to stop himself, and yelled "Close the door!" I put in a final burst of speed, dashed through, and it snapped shut behind me, just a few seconds ahead of the tide of Taxxons.
The soldier guy kind of fell back against the door, and slid down until he was crouched on the floor, breathing hard. He looked up at the strange, not so terrible and yet very powerful face of the Howler I had become.
"I may not know what species you are, Moses," he gasped, "but thanks." I thought of the way the Taxxons had parted before me, and smiled. It didn't work- Howlers can't smile, so I demorphed. It freaked the guy out, that's for sure.
"So you kids are real."
"Yeah. Yeah, we're real. Ax, how long will the door hold against the Taxxons?"
"Without Dracon beams? Likely forever, or at least as long as it would take them to put together some sort of supergamma projection device out of the available sand outside." Andalite humour. It's worse than Marco on a bad day. "If they are armed, perhaps sixteen hours."
"And how long have we got before those Andalites show up to..." I looked at the assembled troops around me, venting tension. This had probably been the worst day of their life. Aliens were real, they finally found out. And they want your heads, and not in the usual way. Oddly enough, it's in a worse way. "...To take out the Yeerks?"
Marco's voice this time. "About four hours, maybe five. I can't read Yeerk, but I'm starting to get the hang of these displays."
"Okay." The dead tiredness was back, now that I was done. My voice was pretty flat, but I managed some volume. "Everyone here, this is your new home until further notice. You're probably all injured, and unfortunately most of you are going to have to live with it. Anyone who's really badly hurt, grab the nearest couple of people and get them to help you follow me."
"And why are we listening to a kid?" muttered someone nearby. The mother of all wrath rose up in me and I stomped over to him, looked him in the eye.
"Because if it weren't for me, you would have been infested by those aliens out there about three years ago, and there would have been nothing you could do about it." The guy didn't seem fazed. "And by the way, all your great army skills would have been really, really useful, because once they had shoved one of those slugs into you a gunpoint -the kind of guns that don't just kill, they vaporise- it would have been able to use them too, and you would have no control as it took in the rest of your family, and infested them too, leaving them to scream and cry in a corner of their own minds with no power to do anything at all for the rest of their lives. Got that?" I was about an inch away from the guy's face.
"Yes sir," said one of the other soldiers nearby, with a laugh.
I turned to him and snarled, my teeth shaping themselves into tiger fangs and back again. "I'm not a soldier. No rank, nothing. No 'sir'," I said, a little pleasantly. I turned back to the first guy. "Got it?"
"Fuck yes."
"Thanks. All injured, this way." I headed down the hall toward the dropshaft, and they followed.
[Notes] Muahaha! Verily thou art in the presence of He Who Updates When Least Expected! No? well, it was worth a shot. Yes, here it is, part two, and there will be more to come. Next chapter will jump back to the Ellimist's point of view for a bit, then back to an Animorph. I'm hoping to have a chapter for each of them, assuming that the plot lasts long enough. All reviews are welcome, though flamers should keep in mind that my math teacher has been teaching us voodoo.