Dedicated to Sinister Shadow, for her review of "Kelbrid Tourism Wing", and queenofsheba/Pharrells Girl. "Red Ivy" had baseball, "Buzzer-Beater" had basketball, and the NFL was referenced in "The Blizzard". But I don't think the fourth major U. S. sport has been mentioned in any of my fics. Until this one.

Chapter 2

"I guess the only way to put it is that it's not fair," Marco brooded.

"Fair? You've never been one to talk about fair," Jake snapped back.

It felt like a lot longer than it probably actually had been. With our engines crippled, there was nothing to do but calculate the days until our food or endurance ran out, something Marco proved proficient at. I tried not to pay attention, and strained myself looking for something-anything-that would break the monotony. ((Is that a spaceship?)) I stretched my wingtip towards an area of space that looked darker than its surroundings, as if something was blocking the intermittent stars.

"No," Marco didn't even look. "No, but seriously. The three of us-well, all of the Animorphs-have, had, whatever you want to use…" He was beginning to remind me of the President-would there be a new one by now? I'd lost track-with his total lack of speaking skills. "…through so much, you know? And then we mess up so bad that the only person able to save us had to die because of it."

((We've had help from a lot of places, Marco,)) I reminded him.

"You don't need to remind me." Jake noticed something on the computer and went to check it while Marco unexpectedly edged closer to me. "Tobias?"

((Yes?))

"Do you think any of them made it out?"

((Any of them who?))

"The auxiliaries."

Change of subject much?

Near the end of the war, we had had to compromise-no, we had compromised-our morals and recruited some disabled kids, or teenagers…whatever…who we were confident the Yeerks wouldn't infest. Another of Jake's brilliant tactics-a brilliance that once again outshone the walls we had constructed to divide ourselves from the Yeerks. They had perished into anonymity.

Or so we assumed. ((In general? Or one specifically?))

"Tobias. Not funny."

Earlier I might have found that comment strange. I ignored him, however, and concentrated on a melodic pattern of static. ((Jake, are you getting a message?))

"Yeah, you might have been right about that spaceship thing. But I can't decipher it." He pulled a switch and the garble stopped.

"Hell-o? We're out in space, light-years probably from anybody, and you're going to give up?" Marco shoved Jake aside and flipped the switch back up. "Microphone?"

"Doesn't matter, they won't speak English."

If I'd been human and in a cheesy TV show, I would have snapped my fingers. ((But they'll understand thoughtspeak.)) I guess I had kind of assumed I would do it, but Jake was already morphing. Marco narrowed his eyes as he saw exactly what Jake was turning into. Good, perhaps, for confusing aliens who had never met humans before. Not the best for dealing with hostile creatures that might not like our invasion into their space.

Four legs, two eyes, one tail. In a word: canine.

"Hey, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll know the Pemalites," Marco shrugged.

((Greetings,)) Jake formally thoughtspoke into the transmitter. ((We are delegates from Earth. We wish to communicate with you. Are you capable of thoughtspeech?))

"I don't think so," a strange voice replied. After a pause, it continued, "Did you hear that?"

((No.))

"Guess not then. But we can speak English."

Well. Made things easier.

"Do you oppose The One?" This voice was identical to the previous one, but differed in an unsettling way I couldn't exactly pinpoint. The first one's sounds were odd, being made with a mouth I didn't recognize. But their words flowed as normally as any human would. The second one spoke an accented type of English, compounding with the fact that the sounds came strangely.

"If they saw us, we can't exactly cover it up," Marco told Jake.

((We do.)) Jake would have literally intoned the words if he were a human, so strong was the depth he put into them.

Alien #1 reclaimed control of the transmitter. "Your spaceship conk out?"

((It was destroyed by the Blade ship.))

There was a pause so long we thought they'd signed off, or just forgotten about us. (It turned out they'd been debating our fate. Lessons to be learned here…) Finally, the second took over. "What was your objective in your gambit?"

((Our gambit?)) Jake echoed.

"Yeah," the first speaker dragged out the vowel. "that whole crash-our-ship-into-theirs type thing. Besides making the ESPN highlight reel…any ulterior motive?"

Marco looked around worriedly. ((Yes, he said ESPN,)) I confirmed.

((We were attempting to disable or weaken the power of The One,)) Jake informed soberly.

((Marco, if we get out of this one alive, remind me to ask Jake where he learned this…for lack of a better word, "Prince" speak.))

Marco threw me a mock salute.

The second alien announced calmly, for a message of such significance, "We'll dock with you momentarily. Will you fit onto our craft?"

"How large is your craft?" Marco wisecracked. But Jake found it relevant and relayed the message anyhow.

"Typical Skrit Na dimensions."

Not knowing what those were, Jake didn't answer.

The other spaceship moved closer to us. ((We're going human, guys)), Jake said as he demorphed. "Shredders on stun."

"Ever the optimist," Marco muttered.

My wings deserted me as I became a gawky, geeky, teenager, nervous out of place next to a demorphing Jake and Marco as young adults. I reached for a shredder and wiggled my fingers, stretching them until they gained flexibility.

Their ship locked into ours. Jake waited for them to open their door before instructing the computer to release ours. We watched as it lowered and we got our first glimpses of a new species.

I'd met too many to count over the three years of the Yeerk war, so I expected I'd be jaded to seeing whatever was inside this ship. But it had been three more years since I'd met any new ones, and the novelty had definitely not worn off.

There were only the two we'd heard inside, identical in appearance. But what an appearance it was. The first thing I would have said about them was "spidery", although that's kind of unfair. (To my credit, they did have eight legs. Each.) The light from their ship was almost piercing compared to the dim emergency-state situation we'd been in, and they literally shimmered in it. It took me a second to realize they were covered in translucent scales.

When the first one we'd heard over the communications system spoke, the sound seemed to come from the top of its "head", if "head" was appropriate for a part of its body that didn't have a neck between it and the torso, (only a wavy blue space), and no eyes, ears, or nose. "Paranoids."

"We have been warned that Kelbrid are highly aggressive," Jake explained.

"Well, ya got that right." It seemed to direct its next sentence towards its companion, although who could tell? "Speaking of which, where are our weapons?"

"What weapons?"

"Explains some things."

Jake extended his right hand. "My name is Jake-" He paused, cutting himself off. "and I am from Earth."

"Earth?" the second alien asked incredulously (it sounded). "I have had poor experiences with Earthers."

"And good ones," the first interrupted.

"Specify one."

Jake intervened. "I am disappointed to know we have made a poor impression. I hope for a chance to remedy that."

"Do you seek an alliance with us?" the second inferred.

"If you have similar goals to ours, then yes, we do." Jake looked awkward with his hand still out there.

"Your goals being to defeat The One?"

He nodded.

"How would you be able to assist us?"

"We are equipped with Andalite morphing technology. We are capable of defeating many forces. However, as you have noticed, our spacecraft is not functioning."

"How extensive is your food supply?"

"Enough to sustain my-my teammates, Marco, here," he gestured, "and Tobias, and myself, for a significant period of time."

"All she really wants to know is whether you're going to try and take control of the ship." It was impossible to tell if the other alien was being sarcastic.

It was serious matter we were going into here, but Marco had apparently missed the memo. "She?"

"I am Rruyshah," the second alien said almost arrogantly. "That is Matrex."

"Mot…what?"

"Matt. You can call me Matt. And I'm male. Don't forget it."

"Oh, I won't," Rruyshah twitched two of her legs at her metallic knees. Surprisingly, they snapped all the way up before coming back. (She had balanced on her other six.)

"May we board your ship?" Jake phrased it as a request, although it hardly was.

"Yes."

And so we made two allies.

I demorphed and fluttered onto the uncomfortable ship. At least, it was uncomfortable for me. Cluttered, for one thing. Then I saw Jake and Marco start lugging things over from The Rachel into our new residence. I felt stupid for not helping, but got the feeling it would look even stupider if I started now. So I tried to carry on a conversation. ((Are we trying to find where the Blade ship would be?))

"After it kills or generally disposes of half of us and destroys our ship? I think not," Marco remarked.

Jake rounded on him. "Okay, wise guy, got any better ideas?"

Marco called to the others, "You're Kelbrid, right?"

"Yes," Rruyshah replied almost unnaturally quickly.

"So don't you have any allies you could round up?"

"No."

Marco shrugged. "Okay then. Plan B."

"Plan A," Jake corrected.

((How exactly do we find them?))

"I'm not sure…maybe there's technology on this ship that could do it?"

"There's just about everything on this ship," Matt hollered, "if you poke through the clutter."

Sure enough, he was right. The computer we found was actually pretty sweet. Voice recognition, for one, but not English, or even thoughtspeak. ((Can you work this?)) I asked the Kelbrid.

Rruyshah said something to it in Galard. Luckily, it reacted. Less luckily, it reacted by blowing up.

"Out of all the commands you could give it, you choose self-destruct?" Jake seethed.

"Is there a problem with that?" Matt retorted.

((It couldn't have gotten far, could it?)) I timidly pointed out. ((How much damage did we do?))

"Enough," Jake nodded, "to hurt significantly."

"So wherever it's going," assumed Marco, "it's going for repairs. Matt, Rruyshah…what planets are close enough to fix it?"

((Close doesn't matter through Z-space, does it?))

"And z-space changes shape, I think. So we'd have to know where the closest repair stations to us-several-hours-ago are."

"Are our old coordinates still stored on the computer?" Matt hoped.

"They should be." Rruyshah clambered over and lifted two of her flexible limbs to view the data. "Hmm…should be…three or so planets with those capabilities in their range."

"They are?" Jake prompted.

"None look promising. One has obscenely low average temperatures but sentient residents. The other two are in the same system, orbiting a sun that has exploded."

"How do you know all of this junk?" Matt asked. Good question.

"I was drilled incessantly. I worked in the tourism wing on my home planet."

"Your home planet? Same as his, isn't it?" Marco critiqued.

"We are sophisticated enough to inhabit multiple planets."

"Ah. Sorry I asked."

"How low did you say those temperatures were?" Jake got us back on track.

"Approximately…I don't remember." Rruyshah admitted.

"We don't know what The One can tolerate," Marco contributed.

"Only some of its…units, or whatever would have to go outside to fix the ship. And…we know some of them can handle low temperatures." Jake averted his eyes from me.

((It's okay,)) I privately consoled him. The Yeerk that had killed Rachel had been in a polar bear morph, and we knew it was now part of The One.

"So that planet's our first stop?" Marco deducted.

"Looks like it. Everything ready?"

"Mmhmm."

We closed the hatch to The Rachel, now a silent tomb. Rruyshah took the helm, and we entered Z-space.

It must have folded on itself, because it certainly wasn't a short trip. We finally emerged and viewed the planet we'd be landing on shortly. It looked like a glossy marble, covered in swirls of gray and white.

"Tobias," Marco whispered. "Look at Jake."

I looked. The spacesuit he had been wearing now looked like it didn't fit. Neither, for that matter, did Marco's, but he didn't seem to be noticing it. ((Yours is big too.))

"Yeah," he nodded. "Jake?"

"What?" He spoke in a strangely high voice.

"We've shrunk."

"Not just shrunk." Jake removed his helmet, giving us a clearer picture of what had happened. "We've…we're…"

"Thirteenish?" Marco filled in.

((Don't ask me, but yeah.))

"There do not seem to be any areas designated for landing." Rruyshah took manual control of the ship; I could tell the exact moment when she did by the sudden erratic motion.

"I thought you said there was technology?" Matt raised his voice.

"We were informed there was spaceflight here!"

"Makes you wonder what The One would want here."

"Probably just needed repair," Jake answered.

Rruyshah gave an alternate possibility. "There might be some resource here they can exploit."

"They could be laying a trap for us," Matt said darkly.

((They might have gone to one of the other planets.))

"No, you're all wrong," Marco grinned. "I know the real reason why they, or it, is here."

"Do tell," Jake dryly encouraged him.

Marco indicated the icy surface. "They're here to compete in the all-galaxy hockey tournament."

I only had one nightmare about the Anati homeworld, but I woke from it wondering what we would have done if we had known who was so close to being right.