By Nyassa Kaiba
Chapter 13- FeralaeWe worked through the night and into the next day, but no matter how hard Data tried, he couldn't get past the block on Voyager's computer. He did, however, manage to get a tentative audio communications line with the Enterprise and the Defiant. It was agreed that the two Starships would tow Voyager just out of transporter range of Deep Space Nine. Janeway would send a code message once Species 8472 was defeated and it was safe to come on board. The message was a simple verse from a poem, "Now the laborer's day is o'er, now the battle day is past, now along the farther shore, lands the Voyager at last." It was a line from a centuries old poem about sea travel.
At about midnight Janeway decided to get some sleep. We had locked down most of the crew in five places, the Bridge, Sickbay, Cargo Bay 2, the Shuttle Bay and the Mess Hall.
The Senior Crew was curled up on the floor, those that needed to sleep at least. Data continued working on the block into the night. The Doctor was keeping watch down in sickbay. Seven had offered to keep watch on the bridge, but warned that she'd need to regenerate in the morning. James and I had offered to escort her.
Seven was leaning back against the wall nearest where I was sleeping. I couldn't sleep, and she knew it. Suddenly, she asked. "Feralae, what was your life like, back in your dimension?"
I thought for a moment. "Well, I'm actually quite famous there, although I don't really like all the attention. I live on my grandfather's old ranch. My dad is both a rancher and a blacksmith. He also works glass and weaves, and he taught me how to do all three."
"A blacksmith is a human who works metal."
"That's right. He does metal more often than glass, because blowing glass is bad for your lungs. So he only does glasswork in the winter, when the forge warms the workshop." All of this was said in a soft whisper.
"How did you become involved with the Animorphs?" Seven asked.
"It's a looooong story."
"This is a long night." Seven pointed out.
"True enough." I paused. Then I realized that unless it was an emergency, I could trust Seven to keep my secret. "It started when I got sick, really really sick. I was stuck in bed for months. But the doctor that tended me said that once I recovered, warm weather was better for the illness. You see, my family and I lived in New Haven. My parents had a workshop on the Yale Campus. It's a temperate climate there. Since my grandfather had died recently and left my father his ranch, Dad decided it was better if we moved out to California, so move we did." I sighed. "Then Dad decided to teach me how to morph. So he gave me the Escafil device, commonly referred to as the Blue Box, and told me to think about his offer."
"And you accepted."
"Not right away. I made a stupid mistake. Humans are prone to make them." I said with a low chuckle. "I brought the box to school. I didn't know that the Yeerks had come to Earth, that they had controllers, that's what we call a person who's been infested with a yeerk."
"Infested?"
"The yeerks are parasites. They leave their hosts aware, but they control them. A yeerk enters through the ear canal, crawls into the brain, and controls the creature they've chosen. I don't know if they'd be able to control you though. They can't control machines like Data, or Cyborgs like the Borg. They've tried, but it doesn't work. This particular controller was using the body of the Vice Principal, Chapman. I brought out the box to show Cassie and Rachel, not knowing who they were, and Chapman saw it."
"So he reported to his superior."
"Damn right he did." I said with a chuckle. "When the Visser gets angry, heads roll, literally. The Visser raided my house twice. He made it look like a Grizzly Bear did it. Then he realized that one of us must be carrying the box on our person. He raided the ranch in the evening, when we were there, and took my parents prisoner. I fought them, both with morphs and my father's swords. I managed to escape from them, and take the Visser's current host body, an Andilite named Alloran. Since my mother was the only other morph capable host body the Visser took her as his host. I escaped with all of our animals and enough supplies to start over up in the mountains. The Animorphs found me during my escape and we teamed up over the next few years until the end of the war."
"An interesting misadventure." Seven commented. "Where did you stay?"
"I found an abandoned cabin within walking distance of the Hork Bajir Refugee Camp. The Hork Bajir helped me rebuild the cabin."
"What is a hork bajir?"
"Remember the bladed creature that Marco morphed earlier when we tried to take Engineering and failed? That was a hork bajir. They were bioengineered to be tree herders by the Arn. The Arn are extinct now and only their creations remain as part of the United Animorphs Alliance."
"What is this Alliance of yours?"
"It's our version of the Federation. I was the one who brought us all together. My mother's last request before she died was that I try to bring together an Alliance of everybody, including the Taxxon Serpent Tribe and the Yeerk Nothlit Confederation."
"Taxxons?"
"They look kind of like centipedes." I explained. "About ten feet long, with tiny crablike claws, four eyes and a disgusting looking mouth. They're infamous for their eternal hunger, they can't control it and it overwhelms their sentience. The Taxxons that were serving on Earth morphed various creatures from the rainforest, especially snakes permanently, hence the name Serpent. The Yeerks picked different morphs, including several sentient species, with the same purpose in mind. Other species that joined were the Hork Bajir, the Andilites, the Chee, the Leerans, the Anati, the Garatron, the Gedds, the Ketrans, the Iskoort, and several Ongachik tribes. When I left the Hawjabrans were applying for membership."
"You seem a little young to be fighting. If you were a member of the collective, you would still be in a maturation chamber."
"I was twenty-two when we left Earth. Whatever brought us here shrank us back to the age we were when we started fighting. Cassie and Rachel were both a year older than I was. Marco was the oldest. Jake after him, then Rachel, Tobias and Cassie was about fourteen, one month, and two weeks when I met her."
"I have not met either Rachel or Tobias." It was both a statement and a question.
"They had to go on a mission with Lieutenant Dax. They'll be back soon. Probably by the time we finally dock at the station."
"You believe it will take that long to repel Species 8472?"
"It will take awhile. It would take ages for JUST us Animorphs to repel a group of enemies that size. And they're like Hork Bajir, too powerful to take on without morphing."
"You did just fine earlier this evening."
"I'm an exception. I'm part Andilite, so it's easy enough for me to evade their attacks. If I had a sword that leader would have been dead in thirty seconds. Besides, I wanted to show them how powerful we are as a group. Sort of a defensive intimidation tactic."
I yawned. "I believe you should try to sleep. If something happens, I will wake you up to help. But for now you must sleep." Seven told me.
Sleep came easily to me that night. But dreams didn't. Recently, even if I didn't have a dream vision from our little friends in the Wormhole I still dreamed memories. And not all of them were nice.
I was in the hospital. The room smelled strongly of disinfectant, and it was irritatingly white. I wanted black. I wanted darkness to envelop me, so that I could rest for all time. It's called Bipolar Disorder with Catatonic Traits, and it's nasty. I felt so weak, so helpless. And when I wasn't listening to the insistent BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of the monitors I was seeing things, shadows and bright lights that flickered in red and blue. I heard the singing of angels and the chanting of demons. Voices and music and sounds of all kinds reached my ears.
Gods no. I didn't want to relive this, this timelessness. It was worse than death for me. When you're dead at least you don't hallucinate. When you're dead at least you don't fight for your sanity.
I felt the faint touch of a hand on mine. A familiar face peeked out through the gloom. Calm, an implant over her eyebrow, a combadge, SEVEN! What was she doing in my memory? Had I accidentally pulled her in?
Then I realized what had happened. If there was somebody sleeping near me sometimes I accidentally pulled them into my dreams. I was never able to explain how I did that. So if Seven had finally learned how to sleep I had probably pulled her into my dreams. But what if she hadn't?
The dream me thrashed on the hospital bed in fever. The demons and angels were warring above me, and I could do nothing to stop them. In the middle of my delusion I thought seriously that I would be claimed by whoever won. The Angels wanted me to bring light to the world, and the Demons would have me rot in darkness.
Seven looked on at my suffering for a moment, and then asked the memory of my dad, who was sitting by my bed. "What has damaged her?"
"My daughter has bipolar disorder." He said, sadness and tears showing in his Andilite Green eyes. "She's having a depressive episode and can't even get out of bed. The doctor thinks that she's hallucinating, because she can't hear us and her eyes follow things that aren't even there!"
Seven turned back to the bed, pity in her eyes. Then slowly, as though moved by a transporter, she faded out.
I jerked awake from where I had curled up near the far wall of the bridge. I yawned. Seven was stretching. The lights were coming on. It was morning. "Good morning." Captain Janeway said, sipping a mug of coffee. "I took the time to put together breakfast from the replicator in the conference room. By all means everybody come in and eat and we'll come up with a new tactic."
I followed her into the conference room and took a seat. I noticed with amusement that we Animorphs had taken a seat on her right side, near the wall, and her crew had taken up a seat on her left side, near the window. The visiting crewmen from the Defiant and the Enterprise filled in the gaps on both sides. Captain Janeway had set out everything from pancakes to assorted pastries that were definitely alien. "It's not as good as anything Nelix makes, but it will have to do."
I took a plate. I was sitting across from Chakotay, with Seven next to him and Paris and B'Elanna next to them. Tuvok was beyond her. He kept his mind on his food for the moment. Ensign Kim sat after him and Nelix sat at the end.
On our side I sat next to the Captain. Cassie was next to me, then Jake and James. After that was Marco, Craig and Erika. Beyond, at the edge, Ax carefully poured the fruit juice into an empty bowl and said, Excuse my bad manners. He and Alloran filled a couple more bowls with fruit and some of the pasties. Then the two of them gently mashed the meal with their hooves, taking in the lifegiving nutrients from the fruit.
"That's fine." Captain Janeway barely batted an eye.
But Paris said, "So THAT'S how you eat without a mouth!"
Yes, when I first ate with the human president he dropped his spoon. Ax commented.
If I were to morph human and eat the way you did I would go berserk. Andilites tend to go a tad crazy when we try to eat in human morph. Alloran said with a chuckle.
I smiled. "Well then, the morning ritual?" I asked.
Indeed, there is no need to scrimp tradition, even on a human ship. Alloran agreed.
Well then. Ax said with an eyesmile. There is little room to do the whole thing here however.
"From the water that gave birth to us, from the grass that feeds us…"
For the freedom that unites us, we rise to the stars. Freedom is my only guide, service to the people, my only duty… Ax added.
Obedience to my prince my only glory. I WarPrince Alloran Semitur Corass
Aximili Esgarouth Isthil
"Feralae Miyamoto Orlan Sorath" I added.
"Offer my life." I stiffened, placing a hand gently to my throat, as the two full blooded andilites placed their tail blades to their throats. If I had had my Katana, I would have brought the blade to my throat. After the war, those who had lost their tail blades in battle, and could not morph to regrow them, (such as Mertil) had adopted swords as a sort of, replacement blade. The rituals were adapted for them.
We relaxed and continued with the meal. The Voyager crew stared at us. "It's kind of the Andilite version of grace." I explained.
"Normally we don't do grace." Paris chuckled.
"I do not understand the concept." Seven stated, before delicately taking a bite of pastry.
"In the twentieth century it was common for humans to offer a prayer to whatever God they worshipped." Explained Tom Paris.
"Klingons do that too." B'Elanna said with a nod. "We offer a portion of our meal to the spirit of Kahless."
Worf nodded. "I have taught my son Alexander the concept, he does not agree with it, he finds it annoying."
Data blinked in surprise. "I never saw one of these, 'graces.'"
"It's nothing special." Riker sighed. "Grace was important to my grandfather too."
I tapped off the rituals on my fingers. "There's a morning ritual, an evening ritual, a death ritual, a battle ritual, a ritual for childbirth, and I'm probably forgetting a couple."
We are a very ritualistic people. Ax stated. It's nothing special to us.
"Feralae, you seemed kind of tense while you were sleeping." Paris said, changing the subject. "Were you having a nightmare or something?"
"Memory." I sighed. "Just a very nasty memory."
"The last battle?" Marco asked. "Man, that bites. We didn't have it anywhere near as tough as Feralae did, except maybe Jake."
"No, it was another sort of battle." I said with a forced smile. "I don't talk about it often."
"I'm all ears." Dr. Bashir said from somewhere further down the table.
"Correction doctor, you have only two…"
"It's an expression Data." Dr. Bashir said with a laugh.
"Oh. Apologies."
"Well." I said softly. "Ever wonder how I ended up moving to California in the middle of the school year?" I asked.
Cassie shook her head. "You said it was because your mother was transferred."
"That was an excuse. Shortly before my thirteenth birthday I ended up getting sick, like, very sick, like can't get out of bed sick. I ended up in the hospital for months. The doctor in charge suggested that I go to someplace where the climate was warmer. He thought that might help, and it did, so we stayed in California." My face flushed in embarrassment.
Andilites tended to be a healthy lot. To them illness or permanent disorders were something to be hidden, a shameful thing. "My father's adopted father, my grandfather, had died recently and left us his ranch. Since there was a workshop there, as well as the resources nearby for my parents to keep working, we moved there. While my dad worked in the shop my mom worked at the nearby zoo."
"Must have been hard." Cassie squeezed my hand gently.
"Yeah, but I worked through it. But man, I wouldn't want to go through that again. I've worked a lot with my Andilite cousins, and among Andilites, Illness is rare, so are permanent disorders and handicaps. They're called Vecols, literally the lame." I looked down into the bowl of cereal I was working on. "But hey, it put me in the path of Destiny, and she's such a gentlewoman, who'd work against her?"
"Is there any chance that the disease could…" Bashir began. Crusher waved her hand, indicating that he stop.
"Patient confidentiality remember?" She asked, tapping her spoon on the edge of his bowl. "We'll talk about this later."
"There's no time!" I pointed out. "We have to find some way of stopping Species 8472. The Enterprise and the Defiant are proceeding at impulse to give us time to repel their attack, but we need to stop them, fast."
"I'm open to ideas." Janeway commented.
"There is one way…" Jake commented.
"And that is?" I asked.
"Howler morph, cut loose, and bam, they're dead. Unless they're armored against it." He added.
"What's a Howler?" Asked Kim.
"I could ask the same." Janeway commented.
"They're a species bioengineered by an entity known as the Crayak. Picture a creature ten times more powerful than Q, with a pyramidal body that's just as much machine as biological. He has a single, malevolent eye on the top of the Pyramid, glowing red. He's the essence of malevolence and lives to destroy every sentient species in the Galaxy." I explained. "Howlers are the closest creature to humanoid that we've encountered during the war. They're about five foot six, with eyes as blue as a robin's egg. Those eyes can see through a person's body, see the heat from their beating heart, the better to cut it out with. They have a sort of a biological lazy-Susan at their waist. If you were to punch one, it would swing around and hit you right back, and use the momentum of your punch against you. And they have claws coming out of their knuckles, eight inch long, spiky claws. Their skin is as hard as rock, and looks like hardening lava. They usually carry tons of weapons. And they're fast. But the worst part about them is their howl. It's powerful enough to cause brain damage. If we were in the open air, and a howler were to attack us with that howl, anybody who's a telepath would go down first, then Seven would probably be next because of her implants, then Ax and Alloran would pass out from it."
Everybody was staring. "It's that powerful." I insisted. "The howlers were bioengineered to do one thing, kill. And they do it with a frightening efficiency."
Marco spoke up. "One Howler took out eight of us in a little less than two minutes. That's how powerful they are."
"If you believe it is the best course of action." I told my fellow Animorphs, "Then I will allow it, but only if Captain Janeway agrees. But remember this, once before we abandoned morality for the sake of victory, and we took heavy losses."
Janeway looked up one end of the table and down the other. "We were so close. We're this close to getting back to civilization. From here it's only a few weeks back to Earth. How can we give up now? How can we give up this ship and all that we've done this close? What would we need to do to put this plan into action?"
The plan was decided upon. Jake would morph dragonfly. A combined Animorph Federation Security force would create a diversion. Then Jake would find a hiding place and we'd run. While we got to the edge of the Howler's range Jake would let loose that howl.
"And when we're done we can all chill out on the holodeck." Paris said with a grin. "I've got a ton of programs to show you…"
"You are NOT getting her to play Captain Proton!" B'Elanna said, giving her mate a swat that wouldn't hurt a fly.
"Actually I was thinking Sailor Moon, with me as Tuxedo Mask. Of course B'Elanna, you can be Serena anytime." Paris said, batting his eyelashes at her.
"Dream on hero-boy." The Engineer said, rolling her eyes.
"Do you realize how much yuri and yaoi there is in Sailor Moon?" I asked.
"Yaoi and yuri? No way!" Paris's eyes seemed to bug from his head. "Who's the gay one?"
"Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, and by the way, Zoicite is a GUY. They changed him into a girl so that little kids wouldn't ask questions when they saw him."
"You're kidding right? The story says that Uranus and Neptune were cousins!"
"I kid ye' not. And of course, I lived the Sailor Anime Craze. So I know stuffage about it that you wouldn't." I said with a smirk. "And they weren't cousins, they were lovers, haven't you ever seen the uncut version? They were all holding hands and stuff."
"Can we stick to topic?" Asked Cassie with a laugh.
"Please tell me that Tuxedo Mask isn't gay?" Tom asked.
"No, he's with Sailor Moon." I said with a laugh. "Naoko Takeuchi made that VERY clear."
Breakfast finished with banter. But for me the banter covered my anxiety. I remembered what the Ellemist had said about telepaths being especially vulnerable to a Howler's howl. I remembered Cassie's comment about my being a telepath and not realizing it for years. I knew what would happen to me, but I could not make the decision to give myself up like that on my own, somebody had to make it for me. That was why I had left the decision up to Captain Janeway. But I knew that if I were human in this fight I would die, plain and simple. I kept the thought shielded from Cassie. No need to worry her until it happened. And with that, I began to prepare my mind for battle.