Chapter 5

Jake

We returned back to normal time, all of us morphed again. I looked over at Ax's unconscious body. How are we supposed to do this? I didn't know. I had to figure something out soon.

The glowing ball that was the The One continued to hover there. "I could imagine what would happen if he took someone without that," the Ellimist had said, meaning taking someone who didn't have negative emotions. Then I knew. The Ellimist had lead us right to this path. Obviously some big rules had been broken to allow the Ellimist interfere like this.

((I know how to beat you,)) I said. I saw all of the others' heads turn towards me with a snap. I couldn't believe it. I knew how to beat him.

O, you think so Jake the Yeerk killer? I cannot be beaten! The One Boasted. I swear, his light got brighter.

((Maybe not, but I know how to weaken you. Menderash, can you pilot the Blade Ship? We're going back to Earth,)) I saw the Andalite nothlit look at me like I was crazy, but I could see that he was figuring things out in his mind.

((Jake, what are you doing?)) Marco asked. I could hear shreds of fear in his mind.

((Like I said, were going home. Tobias, take Jeanne and Santorelli and put Ax somewhere where he won't be a problem. Marco, you just…well, just help Menderash do whatever he needs you to. I am going to talk with our friend here,)) With that, I started to demorph. I felt my teeth shrink and become human teeth, my paws became separate fingers while my claws became nails on each one. My orange and black fur seemed to disappear into my body, leaving only my brown hair in places it should be. My tiger eyes and senses all changed back to my human ones, and I felt my spine shrink, growing back into a human spine. In under a minute I was human again. It is crazy to think of how fast we have gotten at morphing over the war.

Menderash walked over to the navigational controls, while Marco demorphed and stood over his shoulder, punching things into the computer or whatever Menderash said.

"This ship still has its navigational logs intact. We should be easily able to program the Blade ship to head back to Earth," Menderash said. Marco glanced at him, and for the first time in a while, I saw the old Marco. While Marco had been his normal, funny self over our journey, he had been different. He had fully expected to die, to never return home and see everything that was his again. To see his parents and friends. I guess I was happy too. I never lived my life really once the war ended. I didn't do the things that I always wanted to. I guess what I wanted most was to be with Cassie. I had always loved her, and I knew that we were meant to be together. Jake, old pal, if you do pull this off and make it home, promise you will live your life!

"Now, know that we are going to beat you. You can't touch us physically. You only have one mind here to control, but we have control over him now. He will be restrained and unconscious for probably the whole course of this time. I also don't think, without all of your minds, you can fight us. You have two options. Stay and grow weak, or leave us alone. Go back to your other minds and give Ax up. For whatever reason, you don't want to do that. Is Crayak promising your something? You're not all that powerful, and you know it. You are weak and you can be destroyed. You want a mind, take mine. You will find that I will not feed your needs. I am stronger than you. You are beneath us. So I will say it again. Stay and die, or leave and live," Even as I listened to myself, I couldn't believe what I was saying. Where did I learn this? This was the me that I hated. Towards the end of the war I had to make some very terrible decisions. Things that I wish I never had to. I had to go to a place that was pretty dark, give up a lot of what was me. Once again, I proved it to myself.

O Jake, you don't know anything. I can feel your doubt. You are afraid of what you are becoming. What you became. Don't worry. I will have you yet. With that, the glowing ball disappeared. I know it wasn't gone, but at least I didn't have to look at him now.

Over the next two weeks, we cruised through Z-space. We were traveling fast, maybe not as fast as the Rachel, which we regrettable had to leave behind, but fast anyway. We stored the bodies of the Yeerks who tried to fight us in a large freezer type room. These were still people morphed. I wanted to make sure that those controller's families could be found, and that they could finally have their lost relatives back. The Blade ship had had a very small supply of food in it, but before leaving, we had taken everything from the Rachel as possible. We had also destroyed a lot of the computer files and logs. We didn't want to give anyone the chance of finding anything out from it. I figured she would just float through space, dead, until she fell into a star or something. Also, as we went, we talked to Ax. He was still rather disgruntle, which showed that he was strongly under The One's pull. I didn't know how far we had to go to save him, but I knew we would. We would just have to make sure that Ax never got close to Kelbrid space again.

After a while, I became uneasy. I didn't see The One letting us off the hook without more fight. Then, to prove my nerves right, he made his move.

"Jake, we have five ships coming in. I don't know what they are, but I do read a high power frequency in them, and they were able to pull us out of Z-space," Menderash announced. I ran up to him and looked on the holographic projection that showed us and small projections of the fighters. They were all different shapes, and their size ranged from larger then the blade ship to the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. I also noticed that we were back in normal space.

"Clearly, The One has some big toys in his arsenal. Are their weapons too powerful for our shields? Can we fight them?" I asked. I knew that the Blade ship was one of the most powerful weapons the Yeerks had.

"They shouldn't be able to destroy us, yet, but if we keep running and taking hits, we will be destroyed eventually," Menderash said. He looked at me and rose an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, I guess we couldn't get bored. Marco, you still think you are pretty hot with your aim?" I looked over at my friend and he smiled at me.

"Jake, you know my aim isn't what you should be worried about," he said with a cocky grin. He pulled himself into one of the weapons stations and powered it up. I just let out a laugh and got into another station. Santorelli, Tobias, and Jeanne all got into their weapons stations as well.

"Okay. Keep them on your screens and let the computer do most of the aiming. They are slower ships, and shouldn't be able to maneuver around all of our weapons. I am still trying to find which ship in there pulled us out of Z-space. That is the one we need to aim on," Menderash said. I was in charge here, but when it came to issues of flying or space battle, I left it up to him. I watched my screen as the computer followed a fighter. The fighter was about the size of a semi truck. It was all chrome and had two wings out the side of it that stuck right out. It looked a lot like a rain drop with wings. I started to take shots at it with my powerful Dracon cannons, but the ship dodged around it. I kept firing at it, until finally it exploded. I smiled, satisfied with myself, when I realized that it wasn't me that made the shot. I looked over and saw Santorelli smirking at me.

"You think your so good, don't you?" He just laughed at me. I laughed back and went back to work. I could feel us getting hit by their fire, but our shields held strong. I watched to see Jeanne take another fighter out, then Santorelli destroyed another.

"Damn, you soldiers and your weapons," Marco mumbled. This brought a tense laugh from everyone.

"There, the large ship towards the back. It is the one that is carrying the highest power frequency. Aim your attacks on that," Menderash said. I focused my cannon and aimed at a really huge ship. It looked like a diamond. Probable the size of an office building. I didn't know how many living creatures were on there, but I didn't want to think about it. All of us shot our cannons at it, ignoring the last small fighter harassing us. Each of our attacks hit, but didn't destroy the ship. The ship just rotated itself around and fired an intense green beam at us. As the beam got closer, sensors on the Blade ship went off.

"Brace yourself!" Menderash screamed as we were hit. I was thrown back and I hit my head on the bulkhead behind me. My vision went black. I don't know how long I was out, but it couldn't of been for too long. I opened my eyes and saw as another beam lanced towards us. I was ready for the second hit. The ship shook violently. I locked my cannon on and let the computer fire back.

"Menderash, can we destroy it?" I asked

"If we were at full power and had a full crew, I would say maybe. This ship was able to hide its full power from me. It's cannons are as strong, if not stronger then ours, and its shields are much more powerful. We have to run." He said.

"Do it!" I yelled. I watched as we turned and streaked across space. In a few moments, we entered Z-space and got out of there.

Over the next three days, we were pulled out of Z-space four times. Each time we were attacked by the same ship, which we named the Diamond ship. We were able to destroy it's fighters each time, but we didn't stick around to fight it. Each time we ran.

"We cannot keep doing this Jake. We are not getting time for our shields to power up. We have to get help." Menderash said.

"How far are we from the closest Andalite fleet?" Santorelli asked. I looked over at the Army Ranger. He looked serious, very serious. His dark eyes looked right at Menderash, not wavering.

"I don't know. We can send a message out, but I doubt we are within range yet," Menderash said. With this, Jeanne and Marco programmed a distress call asking for all available Andalite ships to meet on our coordinates for assistance. From then on, we had a constant message out there. We were attacked again the next day, barely making it out.

"They are jamming our distress call. It is also giving our position away to them. They can find us easier now," Menderdash said. Finally, I had an idea.

"Menderash, which are we closer to, Earth or the Andalite home world?"

"Actually, with the way Z-space is right now, Earth. Why?" Menderash looked at me. Then, I watched as the realization hit him. "Of course. An Andalite fleet will be stationed around Earth." With that, he sent the message out towards Earth. Like we feared, the message was blocked and we were attacked. Once again, we were able to run away, but I knew we couldn't do this much more.

"What if we sent a smaller message. One directed towards a specific target, like a telephone line?" Tobias asked. He walked up behind me. I was surprised to see that he was in his human morph. Thinking about it, I guess he had been doing that a lot lately.

"We might be able to do that. It is a long shot, but they shouldn't be able to see a transmittion so small. But the problem is I don't know any of the frequencies for the Andalite high fleet," Menderash said.

"I do," With that, I ran off the only number I could think of. To the one person I could trust to help us.