Feralae was incredibly quiet that night. Rachel, Feralae and I flopped down on sleeping bags in the loft that night. Jag leapt up onto the retractable staircase that Erek had oiled for us. The doberman settled down on the bag with Feralae and rested his head on her back, between her shoulder blades.
"Feralae?" I asked gently.
"Hn?"
"Are you alright?" I asked worriedly. I slipped my hand into her's, squeezing it gently.
"My father is an andilite, not just any andilite, but the andilite who spawned this twisted mess. He invented the morphing power, which did him in. 'Hoist on his own petards.' Even worse, I was the one who made that possible by taking the morphing cube to school and taking it out where Chapman could see. So now my father is a yeerk peacenik sharing a house with the leader of the yeerk invasion of Earth. Meanwhile I'm staying in a cabin that goes back to the days of the gold rush and was abandoned in World War One because of a flu epidemic and oh, by the way, there's a smithy and a Stanley Steamer out in the barn. Nope, things are okeee dokey!" She said sarcastically.
I squeezed her hand gently. Feralae snuggled closer. "What am I going to do Cassie?" She asked, softly. I heard an edge of desperation in her voice.
"I don't know Feralae." I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I don't know."
Feralae turned around to face me, tears in her eyes. I held her gently. She was at least a year younger than I was. She snuggled into my chest. It felt so good, so right to hold her in my arms.
The alarm clock woke us all out of a sound sleep. Marco's hand shot out to the bedside table. He pounded it and it fell to the ground, vibrating in circles. David fell out of his hole. ahhh! Ah ah ah ah aaaaah. Jake jumped about a mile. Alloran and Ax shoved their fingers into their ears. Tobias fell from the rafters, righted himself, and managed a respectable glide down to the bed that Jake and Marco had been forced to share in the cramped quarters.
Rachel automatically kicked the nearest object, which happened to be my stomach. "Jordan gimme my shrimp, you shrimp!" She murmured, rolling over. Feralae sat up straight in bed with a shriek. Jag jumped, then whined as he hit his head on a beam that jutted out. I rolled over onto Jag's paws and he jumped back with a yip.
I let out an oomph! noise and rolled over. "Rachel!"
"Oops Sorry Cassie." Rachel flushed.
Feralae fell back into bed and wrapped her arms around my chest, dragging me back down. "Gabumon bear huggy…"
Rachel snickered. "What is a Gabumon?"
"Knowing Feralae's anime obsession it's probably some kind of cute monster thingy." I said, flushing in embarrassment. "Feralae, wake up." I said, shaking her gently.
"Five more minutes with Gabumon mommy." Feralae sighed, grabbing my chest.
I shrieked. Rachel giggled. My nightgown slipped down to reveal way, way too much. "Wardrobe malfunction."
"It's not funny!" I hissed.
"It's hysterical." Rachel giggled.
Feralae jumped awake and let go, flushing deeply. "Oops, sorry Cassie."
I adjusted my nightshirt and the three of us slipped down from the loft. Jag took the stairs in two jumps and landed on the floor. Feralae went to the warming range and put on a kettle of water. "Anybody want some espresso?"
"Gladly." Marco sighed, slipping on his jeans and pulling a t-shirt on. "I am so tired. We're getting quite an early start, and I'll probably be morphing most of the day, including no shoes!"
Marco complained while Feralae got up and warmed the remaining Kentucky Fried Chicken biscuits in the toaster oven. He complained while she took a stick of butter out to soften and started mixing up some pancakes. The twins, knowing that humans sometimes eat them, had come in the day before with a bumper crop of blueberries. Feralae was going to use them to make pancakes. Marco complained while she started the frying pan to sizzle and put some bacon and sausage on it. The grease from the bacon and sausage would flavor the pancakes and prevent them from sticking. And while I was wondering whether or not Marco would ever stop complaining, Rachel told him about the 'Wardrobe Malfunction' and he stopped complaining and started laughing.
"It's not funny." I stated again.
"Of course it's not funny, it's hilarious!" Marco laughed. "Cassie, you need to learn a thing or two about comedy."
"Not if the comedy is at my expense." I said sternly.
"Uht-oh Jake, your girl friend is glaring at me." Marco teased.
"Uh huh. Marco you deserved it this time." Jake yawned, stretching. "So whatcha making today Feralae?"
"Pancakes." She stated. The bacon started sizzling and she flipped it. "Marco, be useful, there's some maple syrup in the fridge, would you get it out for me?"
"Sure." Marco stopped complaining and did exactly what she was told. "May I ask what you'll do with it, besides using it on pancakes I mean."
"Well, I use if for oatmeal. I use it for sweetener. I use it for ice cream topping…"
"Ice cream?" Marco demanded, looking at her incredulously.
"Yeah, ice cream. My mom tried it when she started having food cravings. She said it was good so I tried it and I liked it." Feralae exclaimed.
Marco snickered. "You realize that Visser 3 has your mother's host body which is pregnant right?"
"Yeah, it's the ultimate real life gender bender."
"A what?"
"In Japanese animation, when something zany happens to make a character change sex, it's called a gender bender. I've seen a yugioh/ranma ½ cross where Seto was a girl. He looked down at his chest and screamed. Trust me Marco, a gender bender is anime humor at its best. Poor Seto can't wear boxers at the swimming pool in that fic. I heard about another fic where Ranma got pregnant in his female form. In my opinion, that is high humor." Feralae explained.
We all gave each other a look. Feralae turned the bacon and sausage while the two of them gossiped about Ranma fanfics that they'd read. Jake rolled his eyes and Ax and Alloran gave each other a look that said, 'humans, what will they think of next?' It was warm and cozy in the little cabin.
Finally we all sat down to eat. Ax and Alloran were given one pancake each and some bacon and sausage. Ax almost spilled the maple syrup. I ate heartily, knowing that it was obviously the last meal that I would eat for a long time.
Finally, it was time. We went out the door, walked three paces, and morphed. Far, far in the distance I spotted a California Condor. Its back was to us. My guess was that the Visser was going for an early morning fly. If it even was the Visser, had he made a change to the schedual. Was he coming in in the granddaddy of all birds of prey. The condor was huge. I had only seen an Andean condor, but that had a wingspan of ten feet. If the condor that we saw was anything like the Andean condor, taking it down would be a HUGE problem.
It was too far away anyway. We had all morphed Harris Hawk and were flying in a more or less straight line to the base. But it would take most of a day. The base was situated in a deep canyon on a deep river. According to Toby, they had been working on Dracon cannon installations. The hork bajir involved in the raid had gone ahead to meet us and infiltrate the crews manning the cannons. They'd be in total control by the time we got there.
The condor stayed with us for part of the way, until it landed near a private helicopter pad. Nope, no changes then, if there had been, he would have followed us to the base. It took all day. We stopped and ate berries in a thicket along the way. It wasn't enough.
Then we landed, with an hour and a half left in morph, about five hours later. We were ready. I looked down in horror.
Water from the river was being diverted to the yeerk pool, which was dammed up in a bowl that was obviously carved into the floor of the ravine. I stood on Feralae's back and looked down. The others took up similar positions around the rim of the canyon base.
Toby, if you're there and you can hear us, flex your right hand into a fist three times. Jake told her.
Below, a hork bajir lounging near the pool flexed her hand into a fist three times.
I looked down into the pool and cried out softly in shock. The yeerks had carved out a huge complex in the cliff. There was a series of cinderblock buildings. Attached to them, closest to the pool, were a series of chain link enclosures, like cages in a dog pound. In them, groups of two or three female hork bajir sat. Some talked, some paced, many just sat there, waiting. I noticed that some of them had slightly swollen stomachs, probably the pregnant ones. It made me so angry that I thought I would explode.
Ledges had been carved out of the cliff. According to Toby, these were the yeerk quarters. The ledges had been terraced, with ladders and stairways leading up from the bottom of the base to the top. These were probably quarters. Hork bajir controllers were living on the ledges, in the caves.
There was another cinderblock building that was mostly angry. Instead there were a group of other aliens. They had wings like butterflies. They had four eyes, but a humanoid mouth. They had four, sticky looking pods and two narrow, bony arms with four small, delicate hands and an opposable thumb. Instead of hair they had a series of feathery spines. Are those…. I began.
Yes, according to the sketch that Toby showed me, these are the Ketrans. Ax answered.
Let's go. Rachel growled.