Chapter 9

Eramas blinked his huge green eyes and closed the door. --Good luck,-- he called. Suddenly, the escape module's engines roared to life with a deafening boom.

"Ahhh!" I cried out as the pod was suddenly sucked up the transparent tube. I looked through the clear Perspex-like window above me and watched as a hole – an airlock – opened to allow the pod through. I looked down into the hall below. Eramas was galloping out of the room, weapons in hand.

I closed my eyes as the craft accelerated into the empty vacuum of space, and sped, on auto-pilot, towards Earth.

Hours passed. The others were asleep, exhausted from the days' adventures. I couldn't sleep. Too much filled my mind. I had gazed out to the window for a while, staring into space. Gazing into a galaxy, I realised, that was more filled with life than I had ever imagined. Events from the day passed before my eyes. The explosions. The alien. The morphs. The information. It seemed like a lifetime ago that I was at home, nervously awaiting my GCSE results. I realised I didn't care about the results any more. My future did not consist of classes and careers. It consisted of alien battles and escapism.

Unexpectedly, a loud bleeping sounded. Ferdie awoke with a start.

"What's that?" he asked. The others woke too.

"I think it's the receiver." I fumbled about with what looked like a futuristic radio, no idea how to work any of it. The Andalite hadn't exactly given us a manual.

Suddenly, an image and some words appeared on a screen next to what I thought was a radio. We stared at the photo. Formal, passport style photos of people. Five kids, younger than us. One dark haired and strong looking. One pretty, blonde, willowy girl. One geeky looking dirty-blonde haired boy. A Spanish looking guy who looked about twelve. And a stocky looking black girl with braided hair and dark eyes. Below the photos read some names. I won't tell you their whole names – I needed to keep their identities a secret. But I can tell you their first names. Jake. Rachel. Tobias. Marco. Cassie. Earth's only resistance.