Chapter 3

We were flying towards the Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps base. Jake worked there as a professor of infiltration, surveillance, and combat with animals morphs. He was teaching and training an elite antiterrorist group.

If I was in a better mood, I might have found it funny. None of the Animorphs had ever graduated high school. I'm sure every member of the antiterrorism unit had graduated college. And they were calling a high school dropout 'Professor'.

The students of Jake had been given the ability to morph. It disturbed me, even though I didn't really care.

For the longest time, we were the only humans who could morph. We were different. We were special, if you wanted to say that. Then the Yeerks had taken the blue box from us, which gives people the power to morph. We had lost our single greatest advantage in the battle with the Yeerks.

But now ordinary soldiers were receiving the morphing power? I questioned the thinking behind the motive. Sure, with the increased terrorist attacks on Andalite tourists and the free Hork-Bajir, something needed to be done. But this wasn't the right answer.

What if one of the soldiers retired? Decided he didn't want to be part of the unit? As far as I knew, there was no way to take away the morphing power once it was acquired.

What if one of the soldiers became a criminal? A spy to another country? There were infinite problems with giving more people the morphing ability.

But it wasn't my problem. My job right now was to save Ax.

This almost looks like Area 51, Marco was saying. He was in his osprey morph. I'm telling you, it's all desert, a few nice square buildings. In the middle of nowhere. Maybe they're hiding aliens here. Covering up the Roswell landing.

Jake sighed. The peregrine falcon said, Marco, we know the truth about aliens. Why would you even care?

It's a conspiracy theory. The government is covering up something. If they captured an Andalite ship, or part of a Yeerk ship, there would be no reason to cover it up. It has to be some other alien species.

Whenever we went on missions, Marco had a tendency to come up with crazy ideas about a wide variety of things.

You don't even know there are aliens at Area 51, Jake replied. Have you actually been there?

I've played the video game, Marco said.

Very funny.

We kept flying for a long time. I should have morphed to a duck. They can fly for hours and not get tired. My hawk body was tiring.

I could barely see. The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains. We were the only three birds flying.

Are we almost there? Marco asked. My osprey body is getting worn out by all this flapping. Why aren't there any thermals, Tobias?

Like I controlled the thermals.

I didn't answer his question. It was a stupid one, anyways. I didn't feel like talking. My body was tiring, and I just wanted to get to the base.

Almost there, Jake said. It shouldn't be too far.

So what exactly are we doing? Marco questioned.

That was a good question. I didn't think the Andalites would simply allow us to take a ship and fly right into Kelbrid space. That would probably trigger a major war.

An Andalite prince has told two Andalites to wait on the outskirts of the base for a terrorist, who will deliver them vital information about an impending terrorist attack on Andalite tourists.

Well, that's great. Which one of us is the terrorist? Marco joked.

There will be no terrorist. We have to find some way to overpower the Andalites and steal their shuttle. Then, we will fly up to a prototype Yeerk ship, fully fueled and waiting in orbit. We ditch the shuttle and take the Yeerk ship. Hopefully, we can speed out of there before the orbiting Andalite ships blow us up.

Oh, that's just great, Marco pouted. We have to first get by two Andalites, and then we have to outrace a couple of Andalite ships? Are you sure you've planned this all out, Jake?

Don't worry, I'll figure something out, Jake responded.

The truth was, I wasn't worried. Although it's not something I'd openly admit, Jake was a good planner. I knew he's figure out something. Even on the most suicidal of missions we did, there was always some kind of plan.

Okay, we're here, Jake announced. The first officer of Ax's ship is coming with us, as well as two of my students. We're all going to morph to human, and we're going to drive towards where the Andalites are situated.

Why do we need two of your students? Marco asked skeptically.

I was worried, too. These people would be untrained, and I did not like the idea of inexperienced people going on this mission. I wasn't going to argue, though.

Six people worked before. I figured it'd work just as well, Jake said.

Six people. The six of us had defeated an entire empire. And now, half of the original six were returning to save a friend from a completely unknown empire.

We had gotten many lucky breaks in the war against the Yeerks. I didn't think we'd be so lucky this time. Often during the first war, I wondered how much longer we'd all survive.

Somehow we managed to all stay alive until the end. And then Rachel died.

I moved my mind of the topic. I didn't need to be thinking about the past. The past couldn't be changed. Or could it?

We swooped down to where the permanently morphed Andalite was waiting with Jake's students. The students seemed startled, but the Andalite knew who we were.

Jake and Marco demorphed, while I morphed into my human self. We were wearing spandex bike shirts and awfully tight t-shirts. The one thing we never figured out how to do was to morph normal clothes.

Jake spoke first. "Marco, Tobias, this is first officer Mendaresh of the Dome ship Intrepid. These are my two students, Santorelli and Jeanne."

I nodded absently. It didn't really matter. I wouldn't be speaking with them much.

"Guys, these are two of my fellow Animorphs, Marco and Tobias," Jake said to his students. Mendaresh probably knew who we were.

The students stared at us. I guess they hadn't met too many world heroes before.

"Hey," Marco said.

"Hi," I echoed softly.

"Okay guys, let's get down to business. Marco, Tobias, and I will go in the first Humvee. Santorelli, you drive the second one. Okay? Good, let's go," Jake said.

We piled into the first Humvee, while Jake's students and Mendaresh went in the second Humvee.

"How come I don't get to drive?" Marco complained.

"I remember quite well the times you drove," Jake said with a laugh, as he started the Humvee.

The two times Marco drove during missions, he nearly got his passengers killed. I wondered how he ever passed the driving test.

"I got my license now," Marco added.

"You still drive like a whacko," Jake replied.

We started moving across the desert. The sun was nearly gone, almost completely set behind the mountains now. I squinted to see clearly. Human eyes are so dim.

We hit a bump in the ground. All of us weren't wearing seat belts, so we all flew a couple of inches into the air.

"See? You really should have put Jeanne up here with us. A bump like that might bruise her. I could have protected her," Marco noted.

I rolled my eyes. Or at least tried to. Marco never did pass up an opportunity to get a lady's attention.

Jake sighed. "This is going to be a problem, isn't it?"

"What? Me and Jeanne? No problem at all. Obviously she wants me, and what woman doesn't? So I don't see any problem at all."

Marco also thinks every woman finds him attractive. He obviously didn't remember Rachel.

"Marco?" Jake said.

"Yes, Jake."

"If you wanted to chase women you could have stayed home."
"Believe me, I wish I had. I had a good life. I had it all. They're going to have to cancel my show, do you realize that? But, hey, without me, who would take care of you and the winged wonder here?"

Marco had a TV show? That was laughable.

"Marco, you were bored out of your mind," Jake said.

"Yes, I was."

"If I hadn't asked you to come, you'd have killed me."

"Yes, Jake, I would."

I tuned out their conversation. I was trying to figure out how we would get past two Andalites. The three of us, in our strongest morphs, would not get past two Andalites. The other three were useless. I wondered how we would do this.

We turned the lights off and stopped. Marco said we had about three hundred yards to walk.

The rest of our group joined us as we loosened up.

"Okay. Santorelli? Jeanne? Call this your first nontraining mission," Jake said. He explained to them where we were going.

Marco came up to Jeanne. "Hi, I'm Marco," he said. "I have my own TV show."

"Here's the deal," Jake continued. "We need to take down these two Andalites but not hurt them in any serious way. A good pop alongside the head and they'll go down. But no cutting, slashing, or stabbing. These are our allies. We want this to look real, but we don't want anyone to go to the hospital."

Santorelli and Jeanne seemed to understand.

"Six against two," Jeanne said. "This is perhaps overkill?"

It was evident she had never seen Andalites in combat.

"Keel. Ovair-keel," Marco imitated. "I love your accent."

Mendaresh spoke for the first time. "They are Andalites. Six is hardly enough," he grumbled.

Jake smiled. "It's all in the morph you choose. Okay, tell you what, we'll do it with just two of us. Tobias? Please demorph and then to Andalite."

I immediately started demorphing. At last, we were doing something. We had wasted a lot of time. In a few minutes, I was an Andalite.

Marco had morphed a gorilla. Jake explained what he wanted us to do.

I shouted in open thought-speak. The Andalites must have heard me, because the hatch to the shuttle opened, and they stepped out. They were only looking at me with their main eyes. That wasn't good enough. I needed all their eyes pointed in my direction.

I was about to yell out in thought-speak again when I saw their stalk eyes turn my way, too. As soon as that happened, Marco dropped from the top of the shuttle and slammed their two heads together. The Andalites went down, unconscious.

We all boarded the shuttle. I demorphed.

I didn't pay attention to any of Marco's blabber. It was grinding my nerves down.

I don't know why I was annoyed. Before any mission, we generally spoke about the most pointless things. It was normal, because we were all nervous.

Maybe I had become too sensitive in my old age.

I looked out the window and saw Earth. It was a beautiful sight. Santorelli and Jeanne were grinning like babies with a new toy. It must be a sight for them to see Earth from outer space.

The first time we, the Animorphs, saw our planet from space, we were prisoners of the former Visser Three, on our way to the Yeerk mother ship. We really weren't paying much attention then. We were trying to figure out how to escape.

"Objective locked in, Captain," Mendaresh announced.

"All right. Take us in. Let's see what see looks like," Jake replied.

The Yeerk ship looked different from any of the other ships I had seen. It was bigger than a Bug fighter, but smaller than the Blade ship. It looked like a boomerang, with Dracon beams at each end.

"It looks tough enough," Marco surmised.

"It is very fast and packs a very powerful weapons array, for its size," Mendaresh said, describing the ship. "It carries no Bug fighters but does carry two small shuttlecraft. The Yeerks intended these cruiser-class ships to keep track of what they imagined would be a far-flung empire. As well as for escort duty."

"Well, it's ours now," Jake said, clearly not absorbing any of the information. "Okay, Mendaresh. Let's go aboard."

The nothlit didn't move.

What was wrong here? Maybe the Andalite was uncomfortable taking orders from a human. We knew some Andalites were highly egotistical and arrogant. Was Mendaresh like that?

"It's nothing, Captain," Mendaresh said. I blew out a mental sigh. "Just a custom. We always name a ship before the first crewman boards-it's an old notion, a superstition, really. The thinking is that the ship must know who it is before the crew can know it."

"Fair enough, Mendaresh. Our own superstition is that a ship is never an 'it', it's always a 'she'. Even if the ship is named after a male, it's a 'she'," Jake countered.

We stood there, the six of us, wondering what a good name would be.

The ship was a work of art. A beautiful thing. A dangerous weapon, and probably and exciting thing to ride. Why did those words seem familiar?

Beautiful, dangerous, exciting.

What was wrong with me? Was I losing my mind?

Then it hit me. The ship was just like her. Exactly like her.

"So, what do we call her?" Marco wondered.

She's beautiful. She's beautiful and dangerous and exciting, I said.

Jake looked at me, surprised. He must have been thinking the same thing. "Rachel?" he mouthed silently.

Marco saw us and laughed. "She would love it," he said, realizing what we both had been thinking. "A scary, deadly, cool-looking Yeerk ship on a doomed, suicidal, crazy mission that no one can ever know about? She would love it."

We all boarded the Rachel. Before we left, Mendaresh programmed the shuttle to crash near the Andalites. Then we hauled butt before the Andalites came after us.

Once again, we were on a mission.

A mission to save a good friend.