A/N~Thanks for the reviews! To Qoheleth-I appreciate your reviews! You were right about the Chee, but I'm not going to change it now. I'll also try to make the chapters shorter. And the reason that I wrote Tabetha into the story is because I enjoy developing characters. She may not be exactly necesarry, but she's fun to write. Also, I use spell check on my work but I'll try to glean it a little more carefully for grammatical mistakes. To sda-I appreciate your honesty, but I wish you would explain why you didn't like it. And Aelle-I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I sometimes make my characters go through the same type of things I have gone through. It makes them more believeable.

As always, please R&R!

The next day I was the third person to arrive in Cassie's barn. Cassie was there, as well as Rachel.

Rachel was leaned up against a pole, watching Cassie administer a shot on a very fidgety horse.

"You know, Cassie," I said, "I could never give shots to people who know what's going on, much less an animal who thinks I'm trying to suck the life from their bodies."

"Well, I wouldn't be too worried, Marco," Rachel said sweetly. "You'll never be asked to do that, because you can't reach them."

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," I shot back.

Just then Jake arrived, followed closely by Ax and Tobias. "Was Tabetha planning on coming?" Jake asked me. "Or was she still feeling too weak?"

I nodded, brushing aside the comment. It wasn't snide, was it? It was just me being my usual paranoid self.

Just then a peregrine falcon soared into the barn. ~Did I miss anything? it asked.

"Just the usual sniping between Marco and Rachel," Cassie said.

"She started it," I said with a wink.

Tabetha demorphed. "So what is this meeting for?" she asked.

"This new torture device Visser Three has could be devastating," Jake said. "A wound that you can't demorph and get rid of? Too risky. We have to do something about it."

"The Chee can heal whatever happens," Rachel said with a shrug. "Tabetha looks fine."

"I'm still not 100 percent," she argued. "And the Chee aren't always right where we are. I felt very stiff flying over here. We can't afford that on a regular basis."

~It doesn't even seem like there's anything we can do about this, Tobias said. ~Does it?

Jake shook his head to clear it. "I don't know," he said. "There has to be some way to destroy it."

"We don't know anything about it," I said. "Ax has never even heard of this weapon."

"Let's think of the implications of this," Cassie said imploringly. "The Yeerk penetration on the Andalite home world is even greater than we thought. A few lone cases aren't enough to merit inventing a whole new device."

~Not only that, but the crimes must be considered, Ax said. ~As disgusted as I am, I cannot believe that my people would do that unless the crimes were severe.

"Well, we know that traitors are more than capable of murder," Tabetha said. "Look at the Ascalian incident. How many Andalites were murdered because of one traitor?"

"Too many," I said. "Way too many. And getting back to the weapon, even if we do destroy it, then what? Some Traitors-R-Us will just give Visser Three a new one. Not only that, but the Visser will see that we really do fear this as much as he suspects we do."

"The Visser has an Andalite body," Cassie said. "He knows an Andalite mind. He knows that it would take an insane amount of pain to force an Andalite warrior into demorphing. Better to die than be taken."

"This thing give a lot of pain," Tabetha said. "More than you can imagine. I nearly gave in."

Jake looked at her sharply. "What?"

"She's human, Jake," Cassie snapped. "And she was in an intense amount of pain."

Tabetha studied the ground.

"So we find where this thing is located," Rachel said, gritting her teeth. "Go in there full-force, and take them out!"

I sighed loudly. "Well, I'm glad we're not being to violent or anything."

~Prince Jake, I do not think it would do any good for us to destroy the weapon. As Marco said, the Yeerks would only replace it.

Jake sighed. "I don't like having this thing floating around. If Tabetha gets caught again and she nearly cracks…" His voice trailed off and he looked at the floor, suddenly aware of what he said.

"If I nearly…what?!?!" Tabetha hissed. "If I nearly crack? Me?"

"So the rest of us are stronger than her, is that it?" I said in a low voice. "I'd have been crying like a baby for Visser Three to let me go."

"What indication have I given to you that I would 'crack,' Jake?" she asked, her voice barely over a whisper. "Would that be when I allowed myself to be raped? When Visser Three had all of us cornered and I helped keep David from turning over to him? Or maybe when I was recently tortured and told Visser Three nothing except the cruelest remarks I could muster?" She laughed hollowly. "Yeah, I can see where you would get that."

She morphed to her peregrine falcon quickly and left.

~Whatever she got hit with, it was worse than what they did to me, Tobias said coldly. ~I think she's incredibly brave. I notice you've never been tortured, Big Mighty Leader. He fluttered away.

Ax left as well. It was Rachel, Jake, Cassie and I left in the barn. Jake looked helpless.

"I…I'm sorry," he said. "I just…"

"Don't blame her for us," Cassie snapped. "You did that."

She turned and went inside. Jake turned angry and stormed out of the barn.

Rachel and I stared at each other.

"I don't believe this," Rachel said. "Jake? I mean, Jake? I never thought he'd say anything like that."

I unclenched my hands, which had been balled into fists. "I dunno, Rachel," I said. "He's turned into this crazy General guy, and I think Cassie told him there was nothing for them anymore."

"I'll talk to her," Rachel said. "We can't lose Jake to insanity."

"No. And we can't lose Tabetha to Jake's amenity."

I left, and Rachel went inside Cassie's house.