And he said, though he knew he was very, very late,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all two updates!"

Yes, you heard right, an update for both my stories. With the semester over I finally have some time to tackle other things, including these stories. Thanks to everyone for staying with me. Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Boxing Day/Holidays/Whatever

And a disclaimer: I haven't read all the Animorphs books, so some of my Z-space statistics used in this chapter (and subsequent ones) may be off, or downright wrong. Just bear with me, because a lot of it works into my plot. And I wanted this up on or around Christmas before I left town for a week, so I may have hastened through my proof-reads. Sorry in advance for errors.

JDI Centauri Base, Alpha Centauri System March 2152

"Alright, you ready?" Kyle Franks asked his copilot.

"I suppose," Rudy Garcia replied, glancing at his panel. All systems for the transport ship showed green.

A voice sounded in both men's headphones. "Swallow-Nine, you are go for Z-space jump."

"Right then, let's hit it," Franks said, starting the Z-space engines. The craft they were in blinked into the empty white expanse of Zero space.

Garcia kept his eyes on a display showing their progress through Z-space. After a few minutes he said, "Alright, Kyle, get ready."

"Say when."

"Not yet…not yet…not yet…Now! Take us out NOW!

The ship popped back into normal space. The cockpit window showed a broad expanse of stars, with Proxima Centauri visible in the distance. The two men apprehensively waited to hear from base.

Finally, their headsets crackled. "Oooh, sorry guys. About 2000 meters off. Going to have to try again."

"Damn it!" Franks exclaimed, pounding the armrest. "This is impossible! Has anyone made it yet?"

The technician on the other end of their communications sighed. "Not yet. Although Marks and Durgan came within a click of the mark the other day."

"Yeah, yeah," Garcia said dismissively. "Believe me we know all about that. Those two were telling anyone who would listen that they almost made the mark at chow the other day."

"Yeah, well, as soon as your ready get back to the staging area to try again. Maybe you'll have something to brag about at supper. Out," the technician replied.

The two men piloting the personnel carrier ship sighed as they turned the ship around and started on the journey through normal space back to their starting point.

Garcia turned to the other man as Franks started up the sublight engines. "What if we can't ever get this? What will happen then?"

Franks stared blankly at the field of stars. "Then, it'll be time for Plan B."

"And what's Plan B?"

Franks shrugged. "Damned if I don't know. But it'll be time for it."

-------------------

Admiral Doolittle looked at the report on his screen. Things we're not going well. Had he been a fool to take Li's plan seriously?

The Admiral leaned back in his chair, the seat squeaking in protest as his large frame settled. When Li had presented his outline for his proposed invasion of the Andalite homeworld, it had caused an uproar. It was a very well-laid out plan; Li had been thorough.

The problem was that one detail was shaping up to be very difficult to pull off.

Li's plan called for the landing craft to come out of Z-space within the Andalites' planet's atmosphere.

It was this detail that met heavy resistance. The big issue among the powers that be, was that there was little margin for error. Ships usually included a hundred kilometer margin when calculating the reentry back into normal space. This meant that ships usually had 100 kilometers free of any significant obstacles, which in a ship's usual operating theater of outer space usually wasn't that hard to find.

For this operation, they were aiming for the lower stratosphere, so a ship reentering normal space would have less than a 10 kilometer margin of error. Anything less, and it would be vulnerable to the Andalites' formidable planetary defenses. Anything greater, and it would appear inside the planet.

Then there were concerns about effects, both on the ships and the atmosphere, of a fleet coming out of Z-space in atmosphere. Most of the tech guys said that, though there would be enormous drag and friction created, the ships could handle it.

It had taken some convincing, but Li had eventually obtained enough support for the operation to begin more thorough preparations and exercises, and the JDI Staff had christened the invasion of the Andalite homeworld Operation Divinity.

This was why Doolittle was at Centauri, watching streams of personnel carrier crews trying, and failing, at coming out of Z-space within a 10 kilometer long designated area. Most of them were overshooting the mark. The admiral figured that having several hundred spacecraft suddenly appear inside a planet's crust couldn't be good for the world's stability, but it wasn't quite the way he wanted to hurt the blue backs.

Doolittle, along with several members of the JDI staff had been had been at the Centauri base for over a month. There was nothing in the Alpha Centauri system besides the base and its extensions, some shipyards, and some mining operations: none of the three terrestrial planets were inhabitable. That isolation made it ideal for the more secretive and shadowy operations of Earth's governments, as well making it a good proving ground for Divinity, far from any probing enemy ears or eyestalks.

Doolittle leaned further back in his chair and rubbed his temples. He turned away from the reports and images projected on screens and in the air throughout his office and oriented his chair to face out the large window giving him a view of the brown, cratered world of Alpha Centauri A-2. The base, a space station almost the size of Manhattan, orbited high above the world's equator. On the other side of the planet orbited shipyards for a dozen nations, some commercial, but most of them military. Space elevators connected them to the minerals of the world below. Several cruisers floated around the planet as well, in case the Andalites decided to make an appearance.

Not for the first time, Doolittle worried about the Andalites catching wind of this operation. He thought about Hammond's call to his home over a month ago. Andalite spies. Not just that, but expert Andalite spies. Counterintelligence wasn't really his department to worry about, but he worried about it all the same. What did they call it? Burden of command? Or was it burden of burden of leadership? One of those. Same thing, anyway. He had ordered security beefed up throughout sensitive areas, but there was only so much that could be done. Bio-filters were installed in some places, but that didn't help the spies who morphed humans. He had heard that some engineers were working on integrating the anti-morphing ray, something humanity had "inherited" from the Yeerks after the war, into the bio-filters, but that was a ways off. For all Doolittle knew, the Andalites were already on Earth.

The admiral sighed; he had done all he could. All he could do was hope security and military intelligence did their jobs. He turned back to his desk. He was working with Li, who had remained on Earth, in hammering out some details of Divinity. Supply chains, troop movements, beachheads and the like all had to be accounted for. Li had done a great job in his preliminary, but some things needed more contingencies. And Doolittle wanted things ironed out as quickly as possible, so when (if? He thought briefly, then cast the thought out of his mind) they managed to make the Z-space mark, they could quickly initiate Divinity, bringing the war to a quick close. At least, he hoped that was how things would play out.

In fact, Doolittle had a meeting with Li scheduled right now; the Chinese general was due to call any minute. As if the Admiral's thoughts were the cue, a fully dimensional holographic image of Li appeared in the center of the office.

"Admiral."

"General."

"You wished to talk with me?" Li asked, right to the point.

"Yeah," Doolittle replied, his eyes on a screen in his desk. "I wanted to talk about some of these logistics. I'm having trouble seeing how we can support these supply numbers in the long term, even if we do manage to clear the space above the beachhead." He sighed. "And that's a big 'if.'"

Li let a rare smirk play across his face. "I actually had to leave that facet out of the original operation reports because of security issues."

Doolittle crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Security issues?"

"Security issues," the Chinese general repeated. "But now my government has declassified the information pertaining to your concerns."

"A Chinese military secret? That's stayed secret? I'm impressed."

"We have our secrets, Admiral, as I'm sure so does your nation. However that's not the point. This secret is a key part of Operation Divinity." The general's image faded, to be replaced by a holographic rotating image of the ugliest space craft Doolittle had ever seen. At the base was a four sided pyramid. The pyramid in turn had dozens of protrusion sticking out horizontally from three sides. The fourth side was dominated by what looked like engines. Smaller engines were on the bottom. At the top of the pyramid was what looked like a pint-size Andalite Dome ship, sticking out like a giant mushroom and making up almost half the ship's height.

A readout appeared in the air beside the rotating ship. Doolittle's eyes widened. His initial identification couldn't have been right; this thing was far too massive to be a ship, despite the things that looked like Z-space engine nacelles on one face of the pyramid. It had to be a station of some kind. Each side of the pyramid was over four miles long. The whole thing almost that tall. Some of the protrusions sticking out the side were almost a mile long. The thing had as much floor space as a medium-sized city.

Doolittle kept reading and his eyes got even wider, if that was possible. The thing was indeed a ship, fully capable of interstellar flight. Before he couldn't finish digesting everything, though, the ship's schematics were replaced with Li's head.

"Impressed?"

"What the hell is this thing?" Doolittle said, his voice a little harsher than he intended.

"Admiral, I give you the Harbin Class Factory Ship. Give it a supply of the right raw materials, and it can turn out anything an army needs: ammunition, electronic equipment, armor, even larger and more complex things like weapons, landcruisers, and aircraft. It even has a modular hydrogen converter, to manufacture fuel."

"My God," Doolittle whispered. It was hard to imagine something this big mobile, and with these kinds of manufacturing capabilities. "How did you build it?

"Initial R&D started in 2105. Construction began in 2110. As for specifics, I can't really say. Trade secrets."

"Uh-huh," Doolittle grunted. That was expected. He guessed the Factory Ships were constructed at some unknown top secret shipyard base in some distant star system. All the major space faring nations had them. Intelligence was aware of some of them, but plenty of others remained under the radar.

"So you've been expecting war with the Andalites for the last fifty years?" Doolittle asked.

"Haven't you? The Andalites have been protesting our expansion for at least that time. Always have a contingency plan. However, the Harbin Class was also developed in response to Aurora's independence at that time."

"Don't tell the Aurorans that," Doolittle said, a small grin on his face. The only one-world human nation was notoriously fiercely nationalistic. They wouldn't like hearing about an army-building ship being built in order to take a theoretical war to them. And also, Li had a point about contingency plans. Much of the action being taken now in the war derived from preexisting plans for Andalite-Human relations going sour.

Li went on. "We have three of them: the Harbin, the Shanghai, and the Xian. Have at least one of them land on the world, and our forces will have everything they'll need."

"Yeah, but- Can these things actually land on a planet? They're so massive."

Li smirked again. "I assure you that the Harbin ships can land, once a sufficient beachhead, and the space above it, is cleared. The Harbin carried out exercises to prove that. Now, do you believe these ships will integrate into Divinity well?"

Doolittle sat down behind his desk. "Ya' know, I do believe they will. You might want to take a seat, General. We have some things to iron out."

Elfangor Spaceport, Andalite Homeworld

Duria stared at the ship. (We are all going to fit in this thing how?)

The officer escorting her turned a stalk eye to the senator. (We know it will be tight, but I assure you that this craft will hold your entire contingent.) He paused. (Just not very comfortably.)

Duria tuned all four eyes to the officer.

(But it is not a long voyage,) he said quickly.

Any voyage under these circumstances is long enough, senator thought to herself. A month ago, the High Command had caved to Rasgan and had placed Duria on the mission to Earth. To say she was upset would have been an understatement. Her tail was twitching the entire time Command was issuing the orders for her, her new team, and their mission.

The team was to consist of Duria, a prince, and two warriors. The three soldiers had been trained extensively in human culture. In six weeks they had learned more about human history, civilization, politics, entertainment, cuisine, and nuances in the English language than most Andalites ever learned in their entire lives. Could they stay undetected on Earth? That remained to be seen.

Prince Neandri-Fontaal-Allano was the nominal head of the mission. He was also, as far as Duria was concerned, a royal pain in the hindquarters. He was loud, brash, and a great friend of Senator Rasgan. That alone made him suspicious to Duria. He had gone through Duria's human training sessions and seminars, but, to Duria's eye, he had not absorbed a single thing. Why Command had picked him to lead the mission was anyone's guess. He had probably done something to anger a member of High Command, or else someone just wanted to make Duria miserable.

Croman-Neental-Orlin was the opposite of Prince Neandri. Quiet and introspective, he nonetheless had a commanding presence, with his large frame and scarred face. When spoken to, he usually kept his replies brief and monosyllabic. He had paid attention to all of Duria's human lectures, but his nature made it hard to gauge how well he would perform in the field.

Sapia-Naria-Desala was the one in whom Duria had the most confidence, and also the only one assigned to the team that the senator genuinely liked. Sapia would have no problem blending in on Earth. She had quickly picked up on everything over the course of Duria's lessons. She was creative and adaptable and had a great sense of humor and a keen wit. All of which were necessary for staying with humans undetected for any prolonged period, and had helped the warrior endear herself to Duria.

Now they were all going to be together for three weeks in a human shuttle. The craft had been owned by an Olympian corporation, and had crashed on the homeworld almost a decade ago, and had been long since repaired. It was hoped that no one on Earth would look too closely into the registry and history of the craft from the Martian nation.

The shuttle was as unmodified as possible, so as to complete the subterfuge. Some furniture and a bulkhead or two had been removed to make things slightly more comfortable for four Andalites, but most things were unchanged. This included the cockpit, meaning an Andalite would need to be in human morph to adequately pilot the craft. Thankfully once the group got going, they could put the craft on auto-pilot for around two weeks, until the ship entered Earth's solar system.

Duria was so busy contemplating the craft and the mission that she didn't notice that Sapia had approached her until she spoke.

(Senator?)

(Yes!) Duria gave a start. Then, seeing who it was, (Oh, I'm sorry, Sapia. I was lost in my thoughts.)

(I know the feeling,) Sapia said. (I expect we'll be doing a lot of that on this voyage.) She chuckled. (But then we will eventually get to Earth… ) She trailed off. (Anyway, Prince Neandri instructed me to inform you that we are to get underway shortly.) Both females turned their stalk eyes behind them, where Neandri was privately conversing with Senator Rasgan.

(He really does not care for you, does he?) Sapia asked.

(Pardon?) Duria said, though she had a feeling she knew to whom Sapia was referring.

(Senator Rasgan. Pushing to have you placed on this mission like he did? I can understand teaching courses in human infiltration, but actually going on the mission?)

Duria laughed without amusement. (Rasgan and I have what the humans call a love-hate relationship, meaning we love to hate each other. Although I'll admit it has gone beyond a political rivalry.) Duria brought her stalk eyes round to face the human craft once more. (He thinks I'm soft on the humans, and actually he is probably right. I've been vocal in my disapproval of the war, his war, since the beginning, and he wants me silenced. What better way than by sending me thousands of light-years away?)

(Thousands of light-years away on a pointless mission,) Sapia grumbled. Duria affixed all for eyes on Sapia in something approaching shock. Though the senator felt the same way, she didn't think it would have been wise to bring it up around a warrior. Sapia apparently noticed Duria's surprise for she continued. (I am a warrior, Senator; I am not stupid. And more to point, the humans aren't either. It is going to be very difficult, if not downright impossible, for four Andalites to sabotage any of Earth's numerous defenses, regardless of training. We might have slightly better luck with intelligence gathering, but if that was the main focus, the whole scope of this mission would have been different.)

Duria smiled. (I like you more the more I talk to you, Sapia. Maybe this voyage won't be so bad after all.)

Sapia laughed. (You're forgetting the other two pieces of baggage we're required to bring along.)

This set both women laughing, and this time it was genuine.

And another chapter done. Thank yous go out to all my readers and reviewers.