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.

Also, 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.

Marco

We all sat in a holding room somewhere in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. The room was small and barren, with a line of bunks on one wall and a sink on another. The place could have really used a competant interior designer.

The SGC leadership had apologized for our accommodations, or lack thereof, but we had all agreed that we needed to stay away from Kinsey, who was staying in one of the apparently posh VIP suites on another level. Hence, we were staying in three cramped, ugly rooms that exhibited a horrible lack of any architectural charm. The girls were in one, the guys were in another, and Ax had been given one cleared of furniture all to himself. He still complained about his room to no end, though. Andalites are a claustrophobic folk.

Now all of us, sans Ax, were holding an impromptu meeting in the guys' room. Ax was off somewhere with Major Carter, trying to determine if there was a Stargate on the Andalite homeworld.

Right after Ax's revelation about the Yeerk probe, General Hammond had recalled the teams on Umbra back to Earth. If seeing the Stargate just activate was weird, seeing the thing activate and then several armed people walking out of it was about 10 times weirder. Eight soldiers walking out of a freestanding puddle, looking like it was the most normal thing in the world. Now, as an Animorph, I've seen a lot of pretty bizarre things, as well as several nightmare inducingly horrifying things, but seeing the Stargate in action, coupled with finding out what the thing actually did, was still a shock.

And of course the Stargate opened up a whole new can of worms for us to deal with. Obviously we had all the new neighborhood bullies that the SGC had opened our eyes to, but we were also very worried about the Yeerks stumbling across an instantaneous, direct route to Earth, particularly with the new developments on Umbra.

"So, now what?" Rachel asked. "How are we gonna deal with all these pesky aliens all over the galaxy?"

"Since when are we responsible for the entire galaxy?" I asked her.

Cassie spoke up before Rachel could reply. "We have a responsibility to defend the human race against the Yeerks."

I turned to her. "Yeah, the human race on Earth. When I signed up for this, Umbrans weren't part of the deal."

Tobias cut in. (Nothing against the Umbrans, but I am more concerned about Earth.)

"Thank you." I said.

(But unfortunately, thanks to the SGC- though through no fault of theirs- Earth's security is now tied to Umbra's.)

What Tobias was saying struck me just as Jake nodded. "The Umbrans met the SG teams from Earth. The Yeerks will know about the Stargate and Earth's connection to it as soon as they infest someone," he said. "We gotta tell Hammond, because if someone over there knows how to work the Stargate…"

"These people seem know their aliens," I said, "I would hope that they would have thought of this."

"But they don't have experience with the Yeerks," Jake said. "Besides, I think they're more worried about the Goa'uld near Earth."

"Umm, Jake," I said. "From what we've heard, the Goa'uld are no better than the Yeerks. Shouldn't we be worried about him too?"

Jake sighed, "Yeah, but what can we do?" He dragged his hands over his face. "Why this does this have to be so complicated," he muttered. He sighed again. "I think we need to talk to Hammond and SG-1 again."

Ax

(If I may ask, Major Carter, what will be done if a Stargate is on my world?)

We were in the control room of the SGC, attempting to discover if the Andalite homeworld did indeed have a Stargate. Major Carter had inputted the information and coordinates I had given her into the base computer, and now it was "crunching numbers," as Colonel O'Neill had said when he visited a short while ago.

"Well, the best this system can do is give us the addresses that we have on file that are located in the region of space that you narrowed down. Hopefully it will be a manageable number," she replied.

(Addresses on file?)

"We have thousands of Stargate addresses in our computers, visited and unexplored, including every Stargate charted by the Goa'uld. Thousands of other addresses, unknown to the Goa'uld, come from a database compiled by an extinct and advanced race that we call the Ancients.

"As for what we'll do once we narrow it down, it gets a little tedious at that point. Some we'll be able to write off because we've visited them. The ones that we haven't visited we'll have to dial. Where we can establish wormholes we'll send a MALP probe through to see if the planet is even habitable; where it is we'll attempt a radio transmission. Can you give us a frequency that your people will notice?"

(Of course.)

In truth, however, I was concerned about potentially opening up a direct link between Earth and my world. This whole facility concerned me, as did the thought of human interstellar travel in general. From what Major Carter had told me, the SGC in general and SG-1 in particular had won amazing victories against much more powerful foes. They had done this with limited Earth technology as well as by adapting alien technology, often on the fly. SG-1 had spoken of Earth's reverse-engineering programs, which had resulted in at least one interstellar capital ship, Prometheus. From the Major's specifications, Prometheus, was nowhere near comparable to an Andalite Dome ship, but still the thought of humans being able to project power on a galactic scale had me shocked and worried. Humans were allies in the war against the Yeerks, and they opposed the Goa'uld, another race seeking to enslave and destroy, but I worried slightly about what human ingenuity, innovation, and adaptability would mean for the galaxy after the wars were over.

"Ax?"

I was so lost in my thoughts that I did not notice Major Carter trying to get my attention.

"Ax?"

I finally snapped out of my reverie.

(Yes?)

Carter gestured to Colonel O'Neill who had entered the room.

"So how's the gate search coming?" the colonel asked.

Major Carter replied, "The computer should have some gates narrowed down in an hour or so. What have you been doing, sir?"

"Oh, Kinsey was throwing a fit in Hammond's office earlier. And I was right there…listening."

Major Carter raised an eyebrow, a gesture humans use to express incredulity, but didn't say anything.

O'Neill leaned against a bank of computers before turning to me. "Actually, he was talking about you and your friends," he said. "Seems to think that you followed in into the mountain and are trying to sabotage our operations and conquer Earth or something."

(How did the general react?) I asked.

"Hammond and I had no idea what Kinsey was talking about. Any aliens, or alien-empowered humans, in the SGC, we'd know about."

So SG-1 truly was on our side. (Did the senator believe you?)

O'Neill smirked. "We could tell Kinsey that the sky is blue and he'd have to go outside to check. Of course he didn't believe us. But he's not in much of a position to do anything about it." He crossed his arms. "Of course, there is some discrepancy between your two stories…"

This alarmed me. I narrowed my main eyes. (Kinsey is lying. You cannot possibly-)

O'Neill held up a hand. "Relax. We have enough experience with Kinsey to take what he says with an enormous block of salt." I was not sure what this meant, but I presumed it was reassurance that SG-1 did not believe Kinsey. O'Neill went on. "Hopefully, if we're persistent enough in our denials, Kinsey will leave in a couple of days."

(That would be unwise,) I said. (As soon as they pinpoint him, the Yeerks will redouble their efforts to kill or capture him.)

Carter spoke up. "So Kinsey's stuck here?" she said with slight alarm.

(Yes, unless you want the secrets of the Stargate known to the Yeerks, or else a dead senator.)

"How likely is it that they'll kill him instead of infest him?" O'Neill asked.

"Sir!" Major Carter said reproachfully while my eyes widened. I had realized that Colonel O'Neill did not like Senator Kinsey, but suggesting that he would leave his fate to the Yeerks? This was one of those times that humans alarmed truly alarmed me.

O'Neill seemed oblivious to my surprise. "So, Carter, are you gonna just stare at these computers until they give you a few planets?" The colonel said, in what I'm pretty sure was sarcasm, or perhaps it was rhetorical question. "Daniel, Teal'c, and I are going go grab a bite. Care to join us?"

"Sounds good, sir. I haven't eaten yet." Major Carter turned to me. "If you want to assume your human form we can drop you back by your room and you can meet up with your friends."

"Actually we just came up to see you," came Prince Jake's voice from the stair to the briefing room.

Cassie

We were back in the briefing room of the SGC, going over the concerns we had about the situation on Umbra with Gen. Hammond and SG-1, mainly what the Yeerks could get from the heads of the Umbrans.

"I don't think we'll have Yeerks knocking on the door," General Hammond was saying. "According to reports and debriefings from SG teams one, three, and eleven, the Umbrans don't know the address for the Earth Stargate, or any other Stargate, for that matter."

"Yeah, the Goa'uld left thousands of years ago," Dr. Jackson said. "There's no one around who knew, before we came through, what the Stargate was really used for. Besides, we have the iris over the gate."

We knew he was referring to the camera shutter-like device over the Stargate. "Yeah, but the Yeerks will still learn about the Stargate, what it is used for, and that it connects to Earth," Jake said. "Even if they don't learn how to use it on Umbra, they'll realize that there's a gate on Earth. And I guarantee you they'll start focusing a lot of effort on finding it."

"I just don't see what can be done about it," Hammond conceded, frowning. "We can't send any kind of support to Umbra, or we risk one of our own being captured by the Yeerks. Then they'll really know everything."

"The Asgard?" Dr. Jackson suggested.

"Replicator issues." Major Carter replied.

"I thought that the bugs were stuck in that time bubble thing-a-majig." Colonel O'Neill said.

"They are," Major Carter replied. "But the Asgard are still monitoring Halla, and trying to reconstruct they're civilization-"

General Hammond must have seen that SG-1 was losing us in their talk about Replicators, because he cut Major Carter off. "I'm sorry, but I just don't see how any aid can be sent to stop the fall of Umbra to the Yeerks right now." He held up a hand, cutting off our protests. "We're just as concerned as you are, but we're just going to have to meet the Yeerk, and Goa'uld, threat on our own planet."

"So, we're just writing off Umbra?" I said, standing up and raising my voice. How could they just sacrifice an entire planet? Full of human beings, no less. "Those are people on that planet, General. People with no defense against the Yeerks."

"Cassie…" Jake said, touching my arm.

"No, she's right," Rachel said angrily, standing up beside me. "This would be a major victory for the Yeerks. They'll get millions of human hosts, a new planet to serve as a base of operations, and knowledge about a gizmo that could potentially spread them throughout the galaxy even more right under everyone's noses!" She was practically shouting.

"Hey!" Now O'Neill pushed his chair aside and stood up, glaring at us while gripping the table. "This is war, ladies. You win battles. You lose battles. You just hope you win the war. We've been at war with the Goa'uld for over six years now, and it shows no sign of ending anytime soon. And now you come and we learn that humanity is fighting two wars against two superior alien forces. Well, I'll tell ya something. In both of these wars the front the matters the most is the home front: Earth. And right now both our enemies are threatening it. Between aliens, human aliens, I grant you, but aliens all the same, and their planet, and my own planet, dear old Earth, guess what? I'm gonna choose Earth."

Rachel and I glared at Col. O'Neill. Rachel had her teeth bared. The colonel just continued to glare right back.

I heard Marco sigh and say, "Alright, now this is getting ridiculously complicated."

Yay! Exposition! And plot development! Next chapter things will start really going somewhere. It is my hope (note: not a guarantee) that I'll have the next chapter up by February. I'll be able to work on it during the break in those first couple of weeks before my fourth semester at college starts heating up.