November 9th 2007

7:54 pm

October went by cruelly fast. My days were spent inspecting the incoming weapons and equipment and training the others in it's use. I had yet to decide who was going to be on what team so everyone got full training in all equipment. This also gave us insurance, if a member of Wrath died they would have a replacement.

My nights, every one of them, were spent lying with Karen. I wanted to be with her a much as possible before the mission because even though I didn't want to think about it, there was a good chance one of us would not survive. I think Karen realized this too, because sometimes after we made love and she thought I was asleep I heard her praying silently.

Karen was religious she was Catholic like me but she was not as strong in faith as I was, she only prayed when something really bothered her. As for the others, Jerry had tried to explain to Sarah that he may not come back, Sarah was a smart girl for 8 years old, but she either didn't understand death yet or didn't want to face up to the fact that the man she regarded as a new father may die as well.

Anna and James spent their days much like Karen and I were spending ours. Becky had started writing to Robert regularly, and was pouring all the rest of her time into training. Fred spent his time training, normally he would spar with me or Rachel, or he would be swimming laps in the river.

Cassie and Jake were spending more time together than usual, as were Rachel and Tobias. Ax spent most of his time in his base form wandering around. Marco had been writing to Jade and was obviously afraid of not being able to see her again. I felt bad for encouraging her to leave but I knew it was for the best. With Golden Fist still around and Jordan equipped with the morphing power we still had a few backup plans should our plans fail.

I called both teams into session that night and went over the final details of the mission.

"Here's what we've got," I said. Looking over my shoulder and spying Jordan hiding in the rafters of the hut. (She had snuck in by parting the hay on the roof.) She had gotten a lot better at stealth and I got the feeling I only saw her because she wanted me to. I pressed a button on a disk (I had borrowed this from Ian.) and a hologram of the Yerk Pool appeared. I squeezed a small electric ball in my hand and several sections lit up with red dots. "These area are the prime C-4 locations, if we want this mission to succeed we need to hit every one of these got it? Each of you will be assigned 3 of the 18

"These," I said squeezing the ball again adding green dots to the red. "are the presumed locations of the Bug Fighters, about 67 of the Yerk's earth fleet is stationed there. So once you've placed you three go for them. Here," Orange dot's appeared. "Are the locations Sub-Visser offices, you hit these we may knock off an officer, that covers Wrath's objectives. See me after the meeting for your team assignment

"Team scorns all you need to do is shot morph and kill, shoot everyone and everything that isn't shown as green on your HUD, but a secondary objective," The screen cleared and refilled with blue dots. "Is to open these cages if you can, they contain human controllers if you free them then give them your M-16, I repeat do NOT fire your M-16, got it, once you've exhausted your AK throw the M-16 into the pool or free a human and give it him. Other than that you've got free reign."

"I don't know if you noticed this Erik," Jake said. "But just in case you flunked your book reports on our little book project my brother is a controller, and if he gets killed in the cross fire I'm going to kill you."

"Jake," Fred said jumping up. "You passive, appeasing little prick, get it through you thick head, this is a war, if there is collateral damage in this mission then it's to fucking bad, got it? This could be our last chance and I'm not blowing it just so you'll have a full family reunion, I've already lost a good friend in this war…" Jake seemed to loose it.

"Look ass wipe" His face turned red and he was screaming. "You have no idea what it's like to go through this to have one member of you own family you own family against you to have to risk killing him so many times, to have to pussyfoot around so you don't have your own flesh and blood's death on your…"

"Don't tell me what I don't know little man!" Before I could stop him Fred reached across the table we were sitting at grabbed Jake by the throat and slammed him against the wall so hard I was afraid it would knock Jordan down. Cassie looked scared and moved to help her boyfriend, but saw that Fred wasn't trying to hurt him badly and backed off. "Let me tell you something, I killed my own mother, my own mother about a year ago. I had to blind her and bite her over and over as a spitting cobra because she was going to kill Erik and Jade.

"I had to kill the woman who helped me through some of the roughest times in my life, I had to take the life of the person who gave me life, do you know how that feels. You worry about killing your brother, but I can assure you the bond between brothers is not as strong as the bond between mother and son, so don't tell me I don't know how it feels. To be a true warrior to be a true fighter you must sacrfice what you want for the greater good, because if you don't do that then you are nothing you are more a burden than an aide because all your career you will pass up great opportunities in the name of morality. Don't get me wrong I like morality but how morale is it to doom the human race for something you want?" Fred let him fall to the ground. "You do what Erik tells you got it?" Jake nodded. The Animorphs had a look of shock on their faces.

Even my own team seemed surprised Fred had never spoken about what happened in that underwater lab. We had never pressed him to, no person who could say they had a soul would press him. Jake moved painfully back to his seat, Cassie put her arm around him.

"Now," I said. "Getting back to the matter at hand, I want to make sure that Scorn understands what to do at the station, you rush in and fire a few shot to scare everyone then you find someone in charge and make them deactivate all security in the pool. Then let him go, let him give warning, we want them to think that we're the only ones there Wrath meanwhile will run in ahead of Scorn since agreed last month to change the plan that way they will be placing the C-4 already." I sighed.

" here are team assignments, Rachel, Jake, Becky, Anna, James, and Fred: your on team scorn. Karen, Tobias, Ax, Cassie, Marco, Jerry: team wrath. As for me I'll decide tomorrow where I'll be. That's it, you might want to start saying your goodbyes because some of us aren't coming back…" Slowly everyone filed out. All the couples going out hand-in-hand. Soon only Karen and I were left, I took her hand and we walked back home. I took solace in the fact that I knew Jake wouldn't try to go peacekeeper on me. If he did Fred would kill him.