8 When the Touched attack
- - -
"What did he say?" Jake wondered.
"In his exact words; 'are you kidding?'," Rachel replied.
Ka'an had turned away and was examining the damaged engine of a fighter – possibly his own fighter. He and a dozen other pilots had just returned from an encounter with a Touched patrol that had come too close to Cava'ara for comfort.
"Ask again," Jake ordered.
Rachel rolled her eyes. And said in Kelbrid language, using a voice that dwindled and soared just like a Kelbrid voice; "Can they borrow the fighters?"
Ka'an turned back towards them. Looked at Jake, critically, and let his gaze sweep over the five. "Can they fly them?"
Rachel translated Jake's reply; "We learn quickly."
"Yes," Ka'an muttered. "But quickly enough? I doubt it. It takes years to learn to fly a fighter well enough for battle."
"It took me three months," Rachel reminded him.
Ka'an's spiked tail twitched. "It did," he agreed. "But I must ask this, Rachel; do your friends even have that long?"
Rachel translated again, and Jake shook his head. "Waiting won't make things better," he said.
Rachel got an idea and said in Kelbrid; "Could you issue pilots with the fighters?"
"What do you need the fighters for?" Ka'an asked in a low voice. He had taken out a tool – unrecognisable to any but other Kelbrid and possibly Rachel – and was with accustomed hands opening a well-concealed hatch on the engine.
"To save another friend," Rachel said. "I told you about the Animorphs. You know who Ax is. He's in trouble. We're planning to get him out."
Ka'an shook his head, sighed in a universal gesture of regret, and then looked up to meet Jake's gaze. "We cannot enter Andalite space," he said.
"Ax is in Kelbrid space," Rachel informed him. Ka'an looked up with sharp eyes. His black eyes were split over the middle by a white pupil, and together with the nasy scar that stretched form his forehead down to his jaw they made his entire face look constantly harsh, but this expression was definitely sharper than usual. "He's being held prisoner, Ka'an," Rachel said. "so it doesn't count. Not really. I know him well enough to be sure that he wouldn't violate any treaty if he had a choice."
Ka'an thought that over and nodded. Menderash translated all Rachel had said in quick whispers.
Tobias said: «He was brought to this part of space with force, by his enemies.»
"Yeerks," Ka'an spat, already knowing who were the Andalites' enemies as well as how they worked. His horns whipped through the air, the giant claws on his velociraptor feet clicked against the floor. "Will it hurt the Yeerks if he is freed?"
Rachel translated and Jake smiled. "It will hurt their pride," he said. "Badly. And aid their main enemies; the Andalites. As well as us Animorphs and our people, humans."
Rachel repeated the same in Kelbrid language. And added; "And it will help you defeat the Touched. The Andalites battle the Yeerks; and their allies. If you let your horns whip to help them, they will do the same for you."
"No guarantees of that," Marco muttered below his breath. Menderash glared at him with burning eyes.
But Ka'an nodded thoughtfully. "Where is your friend?"
"The One has him," Jake said when Rachel again had translated.
But Rachel told Ka'an; "On the Blade ship."
Menderash, with his translating chip, noticed the error and raised his eyebrows.
"I shall issue two fighters," Ka'an promised. "with pilots. Use them as you see fit, Rachel, but bring your Hawk as well." The word 'hawk' sounded unfamiliar in his mouth. "The pilots and fighters will be ready in the morning. You can leave then or later. I wish you good hunting."
Rachel thanked him, called for Tom who had been resting nearby, and led the group of humans (and one hawk) away.
"Why did you do that?" Menderash demanded suddenly. "Why did you refrain from telling him about Captain Aximili?"
"What did she do?" Jake snapped, stopping. The others stopped in a group around him. Jake looked questioningly at Rachel and Menderash glared openly.
"She faked the translation," Menderash said. "When you said 'the One has him', she translated it into 'on the Blade ship'."
"Yes, I did," Rachel agreed. Tom, being very sensitive, had detected the sudden change of moods and had lowered his head, ears back, upper lip beginning to curl to reveal a row of glistening, sharp teeth.
"I'm sure she had a reason," Marco began, eyes narrowed. Menderash huffed, arms crossed over his chest.
Rachel nodded. "And a good one."
"Let's hear it," Santorelli said.
Rachel grabbed a hold of one of Tom's ears to make sure he kept calm. "I was about to tell you. Ka'an knows what every other Kelbrid knows about the One; once he's got you trapped, there's no way out. If I'd told him about Ax he'd have shook his head and said this; 'there is no hope for the Taken'."
"That's no reason to…" Menderash began.
"You don't get it," Rachel continued. "He'd have refused to issue the fighters if he believed we were heading on a suicide mission with an impossible purpose. A suicide mission, fine, but it has to be possible. He's got too few fighters to waste even one."
She was met by silence. For a moment she almost feared she had gone deaf as well as blind.
«Do you consider this assignment a waste of fighters?» Tobias asked softly. He was perched on Jeanne's shoulder.
"Of course not," Rachel replied. "Ax means more than that. A lot more. But Ka'an is already fighting an impossible battle; which means he has to be very careful about where his fighters and pilots go. Jake, you at least should understand that." Jake nodded, once, and Rachel saw that through Tom's eyes. Her voice was lowered. "And he'd have had a point if he'd said there was no hope."
Silence again. If Tom hadn't been at her side, constantly sending pictures to her mind of what was happening, she'd have missed the downhearted looks on her friends' faces. And the blankness in Menderash's eyes, on a face already expressionless.
"I'm sorry," Rachel whispered. "The Taken, they… we know of a good number who met that fate. Now Ax, too. No-one really knows what happens, because none have returned to tell the story." She sighed. Shivered. "We don't even know if…"
"If it's possible," Marco finished. Nodded grimly.
"It's never been done," Rachel said helplessly, shrugging. "Never even been attempted."
"So we should give up without a fight?" Jeanne growled. "Just like that? Travel across the universe for over half a year, find Aximili, meet you, and then give up because you claim it's no use?"
"Doesn't sound like the Xena we knew," Marco commented.
"I never said to give up," Rachel said fiercely. "I said it hasn't been done. But a lot of things we did as Animorphs hadn't been done. I'm saying it's hopeless. A lot of things we did were hopeless." She looked up with her blindly staring eyes, and grinned in that typical Rachel-way. "I'm willing to try if you are."
- - -
The Daybreak didn't look like much for the universe. It looked like a javelin grown fat in the back end. There was also a slight bulge in the front; the battle bridge. And the entire ship was, unavoidably, blue.
The well-needed grass fields were inside the small dome in the fat back end, but two thirds of it was hidden by the ship's hull – the remaining third peeked out at the rear, giving Andalites inside the sense of space and freedom they needed.
But all in all, the Daybreak was to most eyes a beautiful craft; therefore her name, as her Captain proudly used to say.
Her Captain, Kandion-Elragoth-Sirenalis, had been in the Fleet for as long as anyone could remember. Some could still recall the days before his time, which was also before Head of Council Lirem's, if they thought hard, but he was the type of Andalite who gave the impression of 'been there, done that'.
Some would call him old fashioned. Maybe he was. He still believed strongly in some of the older ways. And often made his opinion on the matter clear.
But not many would back down his help in battle. Old fashioned or not, War-Prince Kandion knew his way around a fighter, a battle bridge, or a battlefield.
He was waiting when the door of the newly arrived fighter opened its door and the latest addition to his crew came out. Two females, sent by a certain Prince Nemsar that Kandion knew only remotely; a scientist and an aristh. A disorderly such.
«I am Captain Kandion,» he said curtly when they came closer. He had promised to meet them personally, for some reason that for the moment had slipped his mind. Usually, he would have done no such thing. «This is the Daybreak. Which of you is aristh Larynia and who is the scientist?»
«I am Larynia,» Larynia said coolly. «The aristh.»
«The aristh who was kicked out of the Academy,» Kandion snapped. «Know that I will tolerate no more disobedience from you than anyone else.»
Larynia's eyes flashed. So the girl had spirit. A good thing. Spirit, properly channelled, was a good thing. But in a female, it was rarely easy to channel. The problem lay in understanding where to push, where to poke. With a male it was easy; poke here, push there, and they shot true like shredder beams. But males thought in comprehendable lines. Females thought in tangled webs - if at all.
«Then you must be the scientist, Estrid-Corill-Darrath,» Kandion said to Estrid and bowed his stalks barely noticeably. «You shall have access to the ship's laboratories, of course. But I am afraid you will have to live in plain aristh's quarters.»
«That will do nicely, Captain,» Estrid assured him, and looked truly thankful.
Kandion turned to Larynia again. «Aristh, I agreed to having you here as a favour to Prince Nemsar – I can understand an Andalite who tries to keep his family safe. Although I do not understand why, then, you were allowed in the Fleet to begin with. In any case, while aboard my ship, you are an aristh, and you will conduct yourself thereafter.»
Larynia was silent. Estrid clopped a back hoof against the floor.
«Of course, Captain,» Larynia said.
«Your two friends have caused enough trouble as it is,» he said. «In the future, if the three of you do not behave properly, you will have to be separated.»
«Yes, Captain,» Larynia agreed in a silky voice.
Kandion looked her over, not at all pleased by her ingratiating tone of voice, but then made a gesture for them to follow, spun around and led them out of the docking station. The fighter and its pilot needed to be on their way back, and for that the docking station needed to be cleared.
- - -
«These friends,» Estrid said privately as they followed the captain. «Nemsar mentioned them too. Who are they?»
«Minalea-Silinan-Alareim and Olana-Soiru-Jinala,» Larynia said, grinning with her stalk-eyes. «With them around, life here will certainly have a certain degree of… interest.»
«I don't like the sound of that,» Estrid said.
«You don't have to,» Larynia replied indifferently. «Don't worry. They're not that bad. Olana is a technological genius, but she doesn't cause much trouble – until convinced otherwise. Minalea is a prankster and a rebel from stalks to blade. What she rebels against isn't important; as long as she rebels against something, she's happy.»
«Not the right person to join the military.»
«You kidding? She's perfect. People – especially Princes and Captains, I've noticed – need someone to question them now and then. To bring their heads back down from the clouds.»
«That's a new one,» Estrid muttered.
Larynia's stalk-grin widened. «Yes. But you have to admit; it's a good one.»
- - -
Tobias ruffled his wings again and peered down into the darkness. He was sitting on a wooden beam near the roof of Rachel's cylindrical home. The main room was straight below him. From where he sat he could, since there was a three decimetre gap between the walls and the roof (not enough for him to see into the rooms), see how the rest of the house had been split into four other rooms. They formed a sort of crescent around the main room. A bathroom in one end of the crescent, and the kitchen in the other. The two middle rooms were bedrooms.
One of the bedrooms had been Rachel's all along, and it was where Rachel and Jeanne slept. The other had stood empty, but now Tobias's sensitive ears picked up Marco's snoring from inside it. Menderash, Jake and Santorelli were in the same room. A bit crowded, probably, but after sleeping and living on a stolen Yeerk cruiser for half a year in too-small quarters no-one was about to complain.
A sound came from the first bedroom – Rachel and Jeanne's. A hand pushed away the rug that hung over the door, brushing it over Tom's back – he was sleeping in the doorway. Tobias had a feeling the kii-raja opened an eye to watch him every time he moved. He also had a feeling that Tom saw him as possible lunch, not a possible friend.
Then the hand grabbed at the doorframe and Rachel stepped out. She lifted her feet high enough to avoid Tom and the blades along his spine, so she probably knew he was there.
She also probably knew how he lifted his head to see where she was going, and if she wanted him to follow, because she made a gesture with her hand and mumbled "Stay, Tom," before continuing.
She made her way towards the kitchen and in through the doorway. Tom had obediently rested his head back down but was still watching her. The rug hung back over his back, but he ignored it.
Tobias heard how she searched out a bowl, filled it with water from a barrel she had and lifted it to her lips and drank. He heard how she put the empty bowl back on the kitchen counter and returned to the main room.
She stopped in the middle and looked a bit lost.
«Four paces straight ahead,» Tobias offered.
Rachel flinched a bit at his sudden thought but then smiled. "You're awake?"
«There's a beautiful girl walking past right below my perch. How could I be asleep?»
"You can't sleep, either, can you?" Rachel guessed.
«Bingo,» Tobias replied dryly. «No, I can't sleep. Don't ask me why.»
There was a short silence as neither of them knew what to say. Marco's snoring suddenly felt very loud. Tom didn't move, but his golden eyes gleamed as he watched the two in the main room.
"Tobias," Rachel said then in a low voice. "What did you do when I… died?"
Tobias thought the question over. «I fled,» he admitted finally. «I flew away. And tried to hide.»
"From what?"
«From everything. From the Animorphs, from the world, from what had happened to you… from myself. Didn't work very well, though.»
"I guess it wouldn't," Rachel whispered.
«I was only fooling myself. I could hide in the darkest corners of my mind, creep down into the deepest hole on the planet, but my memories and sorrow would be right there hiding with me.» A joyless thought-laugh. «I had to learn to live with it. And I think I did. But I never forgave Jake. Still haven't.»
"You should. He didn't force me to go; I chose to."
«He asked you,» Tobias said bitterly. «He put the idea in your head. He knew you'd go. He knew… he knew you wouldn't return.»
"So did I," Rachel sighed. "Look, we could discuss this back and forth for days. Which I honestly wouldn't mind. I need to talk to a human again after being around these Kelbrid for so long – nothing bad to them, but they're just not humans. And I need to talk to you. Come down here and morph human."
«What for?» he asked, but was already halfway down to the floor and beginning the morph.
"Because I'm asking you to," Rachel replied, smiling. "Let's get away from this tree. Somewhere we can be alone. I know a beautiful place by the lake."
«'Beautiful'?» he echoed, quickly morphing to his human self. «You've seen it?»
She nodded. "Before I was blinded." She reached out an arm. Tobias took it. "It's a good place for thinking – or talking. And we have a lot to talk about."
"And Tom?" Tobias said questioningly.
"Tom stays," Rachel said, stressing the word 'stays'. Tom's ears flickered forwards to hear the command. Rachel patted Tobias's arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. "You can be my eyes for now, Tobias. Let's go before someone else wakes up."
- - -
"Rakani!" a voice roared.
Marco sat up as if someone had hit him and was wide awake at once. He scanned the room, wondered for a moment where he was, and remembered the events of the previous days when he saw Ka'an standing in the doorway.
Ka'an's horns twitched. "Rakani!" he repeated. "Gerush di'a."
"Wake up," Menderash muttered, translating even as he turned away, covered his ears and curled together for more sleep. "Get up."
Jake was also awake. It was hard to avoid when an alien was roaring at you in a very determined manner. "Why?" Jake asked.
Menderash didn't respond. Until Santorelli grabbed his shoulder, turned him around and took a hold of his hair to yank him up. "Your Captain needs you to translate!" he barked.
Menderash, as always grumpy and sleepy in the morning, muttered something, rubbed his scalp and finally said; «Why?»
Ka'an spoke again. A long, complicated sentence, during which Menderash's eyes began closing again.
Santorelli raised a hand and the former Andalite's eyes jerked open. "The Touched are coming. They probably intend to raid us. We need to follow Ka'an here to somewhere safe unless we like the idea of being killed or captured. Most likely captured; since the Yeerks showed up, they like the idea of taking live prisoners more and more."
"Was that all?" Jake asked.
"Yes, Captain. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"No."
Menderash sighed heavily, but Ka'an said something else.
"He wonders where Rachel and the bird are," Menderash said.
"They're gone?" Santorelli snapped.
"Probably. Otherwise he would have no reason to ask, would he?" Menderash replied grumpily.
"Somebody check the other room," Jake ordered. "And wake up Jeanne."
"I'll go," Marco offered at once. He leaped up and left the room. Found his way to the other bedroom, pulled the rug out of the way, raised his foot to take a step though the doorway… and heard a loud, ferocious growl.
He froze, one foot raised, one hand on the doorframe.
Tom kept growling, raising his head and glaring up at Marco.
"Nice doggy," Marco tried in a weak voice. He began moving away. Tom leapt up and snarled, still in the doorway – and not looking like he'd let anyone pass by.
"Ehm, Jake?" Marco called, freezing in place again, not daring any movements when the kii-raja so disapproved of them. "We might have a problem."
Jake came out into the main room, followed by Santorelli, Ka'an and finally a Menderash who was still rubbing his eyes. The general response to Marco's situation was laughter.
"It's not funny," Marco complained.
Ka'an smiled, and shook his head at some personal joke. "Tom: yaysh," he commanded.
Tom's golden eyes turned towards the Kelbrid, evaluating, maybe wondering if it was worth the trouble to obey.
"Yaysh," Ka'an repeated sternly.
The kii-raja's tail swept up and he bared his teeth. But then he walked past Marco (growling on the way), elegantly leaped out through the door hole and disappeared out of sight at a loping run. Marco breathed a sigh of relief.
"What is the definition of yaysh?" he wondered.
"It's a word that means 'eye'," Menderash said. "What he meant by it, I do not know." So he asked in thought-speech; «What did you tell him to do?»
"Yaysh," Ka'an said in Kelbrid. "It tells him to find Rachel. Be her eyes. The only command he will listen to from me, or anyone else, except for Rachel. Its only function is to get him out of our way, since he has a tendency to guard whatever place he is on."
Menderash translated, just as Jeanne came out of the room, looking like she had been awake for some time. "What did you do that for?" she demanded, smiling. "I was about to tell him what a good kii-raja he was to keep Marco away." Her eyes twinkled with amusement. "Menderash? Ask Ka'an where I could get one of those."
Jake rolled his eyes. "We don't have time," he said. "Ka'an says the Touched are coming."
"The Touched?" Jeanne repeated, the smile gone.
Jake nodded.
Ka'an spoke again. Menderash translated; "They raid Cava'ara a few times now and then. Try to blast away the resistance. But Ka'an says we can hide with the Kelbrid – down under the trees. We have to leave now."
"What about Tobias?" Jeanne questioned. She had already noticed they were missing. "And Rachel?"
Menderash said the same in thought-speech, and then translated Ka'an's reply; "If they are anywhere near any tree, the Kelbrid there will know Rachel and make sure they reach safety. If they are far away from the trees, the Touched will not know they are there and thus ignore them. And as soon as Tom finds her she can manage very well –"
The house suddenly shook – the entire tree was swaying. Being caught of guard, most of them fell to the floor and Jeanne stumbled backwards into the wall. The light furniture tumbled around and a chair rolled past Santorelli's head with a millimetre to spare.
Ka'an – the only one still standing – told them to follow him and then left the house hurriedly. No-one hesitated to do so as another quake shook the house.
The sky was dark, morning had not yet arrived, and the three moons peeked out behind the masses of black arrowhead-shaped fighters. Ka'an glanced up at them with worried eyes, and then scanned around, being relieved to find the streets already empty.
"Phas," he barked, purposefully setting off down a street.
"Come," Menderash translated – unnecessarily. Some words are obvious.
The group followed Ka'an through the streets. The fighters above were firing ferociously down at the tree village.
But the blue energy beams (what the Kelbrid referred to as kata rajch, but would later be known by the remainder of the galaxy as kataj) were met by the tree's own attack. When the beam was about ten meters above their heads, a pole would shoot out of the tree's top – from the street itself – to meet it halfway. The protecting pole was incinerated, but the tree and the village remained unharmed.
This method of defence – unavoidably – fascinated Menderash. In fact, it fascinated him so much, that at a total of five times Jeanne and Santorelli had to grab his arms to pull him onwards when he stopped to watch it.
Ka'an finally halted at the edge of the treebowl. He looked at them, one at the time. And again spoke.
Menderash's eyes went a bit wide. When he translated, the rest of the group understood why. "We need to take the quickest way down," he announced, glancing out over the edge, down into the darkness far below. "This is it." He pointed.
"Hold on now!" Marco protested, raising both hands as if in defence. "You're saying we need to jump? As in J-U-M-P? As in, leap out into the air and fall to the ground? As in, bungy jumping without a rope? Skydiving with no parachute?"
Menderash nodded grimly.
"Jake? Please tell me this is nothing worse than Andalite-boy here losing it."
Ka'an was watching them. Not patiently. He said something else; and Menderash told the group; "Make sure you don't land so you hurt yourselves."
"Maybe a Kelbrid can survived a hundred meter drop," Jake snapped. "Humans can't. Tell him that."
"A five hundred and sixty-nine meter drop," Menderash corrected.
"I did so not need to hear that," Marco whined.
"Rachel has jumped here," Ka'an revealed in Kelbrid, and Menderash translated. "And survived. At the time, I considered humans to be brave."
"No," disagreed Marco, shaking his head. "You see, Rachel is a nutcase. A lunatic. Xena, warrior princess, on a first-name basis with every single employee in Stupid-things-to-do Amusement Park for Over-Brave Psychos. Their logo is 'We'll get you thrilled, and we'll get you killed'."
"If Rachel's lived through it, so can we," Jeanne reasoned.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Marco muttered.
"Stop complaining," Menderash said, annoyed.
Marco had prepared a reply, but Jake was quicker and told the former Andalite; "Ask him what we'll be landing on."
Menderash nodded, did so, and listened to Ka'an's answer. Then he said; "A large, Cava'aran plant. They call it inpa'ali. It will break our fall and make sure we do not get badly hurt."
"Not 'badly' hurt," Marco said. "Which means, we'll just get 'hurt'. Gee, what a relief."
Ka'an said more. Menderash listened, and then added; "He warns against landing on feet and hands… we should land on our backs, head leaned up against our chests. And one more thing; we'll bounce."
"I'm not jumping," Marco stated stubbornly.
"Then don't," Jeanne snorted. "Stay here. With the Touched." She pointed back into the village. Fighters had begun descending, preparing to land.
Marco went just a tiny bit paler.
"Captain, what are your orders?" Menderash asked.
Jake sighed. "How about morphing birds and flying down – those of us who can?"
"We'll have plenty of time to morph on the way down," Santorelli laughed.
Menderash looked grim. Jeanne placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll jump with you," she offered, comforting, forgetting the Andalite's strong sense of pride.
Menderash broke free, straightening up haughtily. "No use risking an extra life," he snapped. "If a blind human girl can jump, so can an Andalite warrior."
"Rachel isn't just any girl, though," Marco said lowly.
Menderash disagreed. "She is –"
"Tamni!" Ka'an cried suddenly, hate bringing his voice up to shrill notes that stung the ears of the group.
"Touched," Menderash translated , hands rubbing his ears.
"Kro'y," Ka'an commanded, horns raised and whipping, claws snapping at the ground. "Arfar."
"Jump. Now."
Milliseconds later there were flashes of green to their right. Jake turned to get a closer look, and found two penetrating sets of green-pupiled eyes moving steadily towards them. Out of the corner of his eye he could more shining Touched eyes, to his left, and behind them. The only way out was the five hundred sixty-nine meter drop.
"That settles it," Jake decided. "Do as Ka'an says. Jump!"
Santorelli and Menderash were the quickest to follow the order, as they stood closest to the edge. Santorelli threw himself out and dove down, unhesitantly, as if he had never done anything else in his life. The darkness below quickly swallowed him. Menderash was close behind him, but tumbling alarmingly and not at all that gracefully.
"You coming?" Jake asked Ka'an.
The scar-faced Kelbrid had turned to face his enemies with an expression that could be nothing less than suicidal determination. His white pupils shone with hate; almost as brightly as the green pupils of the Touched.
"You're actually planning to jump?" Marco asked Jeanne, stepping into her path when she neared the edge.
"If you are afraid, little Marco, I'll hold your hand," she offered with a laugh – but a nervous laugh. Then she took a deep breath, made her way past him, took a step out into the open air and was gone.
Ka'an was furiously shouting – probably insults – at the Touched. Their faces were close enough to be seen now; they looked just like any other Kelbrid, except for the constant, chill-bringing shining of their green pupils. And all of them were smiling broadly, their ears only twitching instead of turning this way and that like they usually did.
And they had reasons to smile; they were more numerous, they had the upper hand, and they were seeing a golden opportunity to capture the well-known leader of the Kelbrid resistance – plus two of the humans the One had sent them for.