Cassie

"…supposed to just be Taxxon backup! Cassie doesn't have to do this alone!"

"The more people we have going in, the more risk we take on, the more people we have to evac…"

I turned away from the group and started walking. I couldn't listen to Rachel and Jake argue about this anymore. Quincy flew from Diamanta's side, landed on my shoulder, and said in my ear, "Dia offered for her and Marco to come along, if you want company."

I shook my head and kept walking. "I've had enough talk. I need to clear my head."

Quincy launched from my shoulder again and wove around me, echolocating. "I'm not sure Marco was offering to talk, exactly…"

"I don't want to not-talk either," I grumbled. The mud sucked at my feet. I rubbed at the muck on my face with the equally dirty heel of my hand. "Ugh. I need to morph. I can't be a human down here anymore. This place isn't for humans."

"Mole?" Quincy suggested.

"What if a Taxxon eats us?"

"Taxxon?"

"Huh, maybe mole isn't so bad."

«Cassie,» said a voice in my head. I jumped and turned around. It was Estrid, out on a walk like me. She looked as filthy as I felt. «When do you go on your mission?»

Quincy flapped a loose circle around Estrid, scanning. I slumped on my feet. Somehow I'd managed to walk into the one conversation I wanted even less than Jake and Rachel's argument. "Tomorrow."

«Good,» Estrid said, one stalk-eye tracking Quincy. «Then there is still time.» She took a step toward me, sloshing through a puddle, and pinned me with her main eyes. «Do not do this. Destroy the virus. Find some other way to win this war.»

My jaw dropped. Quincy flew back to me and settled in my cupped hand. "What? Estrid, you made this virus! What are you talking about?"

«I have been thinking a lot since Aximili destroyed my lab,» Estrid said. «I have had nothing to do but think. Ever since I left on Arbat's doomed mission to this world, I distracted myself in the lab. Used the clarity of my science to banish all doubts.»

"Reminds me of Marco," Quincy whispered to me. I shivered.

«I thought about the nature of this virus. All viruses mutate, and especially so an engineered quantum virus with inadequate time for genome stability testing. This virus will have consequences that not even I can foresee. I engineered it to the best of my ability, but I am just a single girl in a single lab at the fringes of known space. The virus will change in ways we do not expect. You would be better off using a weapon whose outcomes you can be certain of. Like a Shredder cannon.»

"We don't have any Shredder cannons, Estrid," I said wearily. "Except the one on the Ralek River."

«Then find one of your human weapons,» Estrid urged. «Anything but this.»

"What about your glory?" I snapped. "What about proving yourself? Isn't that why you experimented on all those Yeerks? So you could prove you were right, that you could do this?"

Estrid sneered. «This is the same line you used to manipulate me into doing this in the first place. What did you say they would call me? "The Girl Genius?" Yes, Cassie. You were right. I crave recognition. But it was the next thing you said that truly convinced me. You told me that if I released my original, killer virus, they would call me "The Evil Bitch." That argument was more effective than you could have known, human. There is something you don't know about me. Something no one but Arbat knew. It has been much on my mind since my lab was destroyed. You must know the story of the quantum virus deployed on the Hork-Bajir homeworld, living among the Hork-Bajir like you did.»

I nodded, my lower lip pinned between my teeth.

Estrid took another step toward me. Her dark brown eyes were like pits in the dimness of the Living Hive. «My father did that.»

I breathed in sharply and clutched Quincy to my chest. Her father. Alloran-Semitur-Corass. Butcher of the Hork-Bajir. Host of Visser Five. She'd never said anything, not even when her father had just been killed by his brother – by her uncle, Arbat. But of course she wouldn't. Why would she tell us, when we had never given her any reason to trust us or confide in us?

How many things could have been different, Quincy thought, if we had only treated her as a friend instead of an enemy?

"You experimented on them too," I said through numb lips. "You cloned Toby."

«Yes. Another shining entry into the Girl Genius portfolio of accomplishments I was building on my lab computer. That was the experiment I would have done to make a better virus, one that would make the Hork-Bajir uninfestable instead of dead. I thought I would prove myself better than my father!» Estrid said bitterly. «That was when I thought the Yeerk virus was going all according to plan. Back when I was sure I would get it right, and go from triumph to triumph. And now Aximili smashed it all to pieces. No matter. It would have all been smashed to pieces anyway, in the eyes of the Andalite public.» She must have caught some flash of pity on my face, because she said, «What? Have you never wished to be a hero, human? To be something greater than you were told to be? From what little I have seen, your people have no more regard for young females than mine do.»

"Yes," I whispered. "I have."

We can't have done anything as bad as Estrid while fighting this war, Quincy said. We can't. But a litany ran through my mind: the Yeerks we boiled to death at the hospital. David. The Howlers. On and on.

«I did not test the virus on that Pool in order to prove myself,» Estrid said. «I did it because it was the only moral option.» When I recoiled, Estrid went on, «Medical trials are supposed to have hundreds of subjects. You brought me eleven. I do not have state-of-the-art technology. I am in a portable lab that has not seen proper maintenance in an Earth year. My father was roundly condemned as a monster, and he at least had a team of scientists working to ensure his virus would not jump from one species to another. To give you a practically untested virus that could mutate in unforeseen ways – that would have been an act of hubris and monstrosity beyond anything my father did.»

"It works," I said. "A bunch of other Yeerks besides Illim tried it out. They've all been changed. They can't force-infest people anymore. Only one of them died. I would have thought you'd be happy."

«Cassie, biological weapons are a monstrosity,» Estrid said, relentless. «I have done a monstrous thing, and you are about to make it worse. My people will still call me "The Evil Bitch." And unless you put a stop to this, your people will call you the same.»

"And if we lose," I whispered, "then your fleet will come and destroy this planet. And no one will call us anything at all."

All the fight drained out of Estrid. She looked old and young all at once, like Jake looked sometimes. She dumped the virus in the Aftran Plisam Pool without asking, Quincy said, eyeing her with disgust. She got a Yeerk child killed.

She did, I thought. I feel sorry for her anyway.

"Hey," I said softly, reaching out the hand that wasn't holding Quincy. "I know Andalites don't do hugs, but uh – do you want, uh – whatever version of a hug is okay for you?"

Estrid turned her hand palm-up and spread her fingers out. Then she pressed her hand to mine, just for a moment. It was like a high-five, but without the violent impact. Her fingers were delicate against my calloused hand. Then she stepped back. She had said her piece.

I was going to release the virus tomorrow anyway.

I've gotten a little more used to morphing with an audience – an audience besides the other Animorphs, and that didn't count because we've seen each other do so many awful disgusting things it doesn't matter anymore. I've morphed in front of free Hork-Bajir, both of my parents, even enemy Yeerks. But the feeling of getting ready to morph in front of this audience, at this moment, felt like I was about to tear my ribcage open in front of witnesses. No, like I was about to tear someone else's ribcage open. An audience for my crimes.

Arbron had to be there, because he was our guide to the Yeerk Pool through the Living Hive's tunnels. I understood why Mr. Tidwell was there, to say goodbye to Illim and wish him the best. But I didn't understand why a handful of Taxxons, and worse, Gonrod and Mertil, were here to watch this.

At least Estrid was nowhere in sight.

Mr. Tidwell opened his eyes. "I'm ready," Illim said.

I looked at the other Animorphs. Mud squishing beneath Abineng's hooves as he shifted impatiently. Tobias, just barely holding Rachel's hand, the way Estrid had just barely brushed my hand with hers. His eyes were on her, but Elhariel's were on Ax, who looked stiff and dried out like a dead bug. Jaxom stood under him like a baby deer next to its mother, while Loren chewed on the split ends of her hair and stared into nothing as if she were blind again. Diamanta weaved complex patterns over Marco's body as he watched Jake with the slightly constipated expression of a boy who desperately wants to show affection but has too many hang-ups in the way. Dia looked at me as if to weigh her options, like maybe I was a safe stand-in for what she really wanted. And Jake? Jake just looked gutted, holding Merlyse against his chest with one hand.

I saw Jake and Merlyse, and I knew Jake had argued with Rachel so hard because he'd been arguing against a part of himself that was saying the exact same thing. That it wasn't right for the rest of the Animorphs to be waiting in the wings as backup. That I shouldn't have to do this with just Illim.

"Hey," I told them, tucking Quincy up the sleeve of my shirt. "Put your dæmons away."

Merlyse climbed down into the front pocket of Jake's hoodie. Dia slithered inside Marco's T-shirt, making it bulge strangely. I rushed up to them and hugged them. I could feel Merlyse's little bird twitches through the cloth of Jake's hoodie, and the textured smoothness of Dia's scales through the thin material of Marco's T-shirt. It was more intimate than any make-out session we'd had. I didn't care that we were doing this in front of an audience. In that moment, it didn't matter, at least not to me.

I pulled out of the hug and flung Quincy out of my sleeve to fly to Abineng's ear. Rachel turned to look at me. I looked back. Marco was watching her too.

She shook her head. "Nuh uh. I'm not going to say it. Not this time. Sorry."

"Fine," I said. "Let's do it." I turned to Mr. Tidwell.

He held his hand up to his ear as if to listen to a transmission on a Secret Service earpiece. Illim crawled out into his cupped hand. This time, Kalysico's bucket stayed at his feet. I quickly took Illim from Tidwell's hand and pressed him to my ear, knowing from experience how unpleasant it was to be a Yeerk in the open air.

From Illim I felt deep sadness and sheer determination to get this done. It was pretty compatible with how I felt. Rachel was almost done morphing to Yeerk, a shifting mass in the mud at Tobias's feet. Quincy, displaced by Abi's disappearance, flew in circles above me, waiting for his turn.

Illim and I focused on the Taxxon.

It wasn't any less disgusting to me than it had been the first time. At least this time Illim and I both knew to steer the morph toward developing a Taxxon mouth as quickly as possible. My human mouth opened enormous, grotesque, filling in with needle teeth. The Andalites recoiled at the sight. My legs melted together, and I fell face first into the mud, chewing it down almost before my digestive system became Taxxon enough to absorb it. I heard the guzzling, slurping noises as Tobias and I gorged ourselves on the wet bioluminescent dirt. It was absolutely foul, right up until it was the most delicious thing in the world.

«Hey. Aren't you forgetting something, Cassie?» A voice in my head. Jake.

«The virus,» Illim said. «Come on back up, we need to bring the virus.»

I wriggled around inside the tunnel I'd started to dig and came back up. I watched the Andalites with my fractured vision. Spit gathered and fell from my open mouth. They both smelled delicious, and one of them didn't have a pointy tail that could stop me…

The one with the pointy tail – «that's Gonrod, Cassie, stay focused,» Illim said – stepped forward, his blade poised and ready over his head, and reached out toward me with a small clear vial. It looked like most of the medications my dad would inject into the animals at the clinic. I reached out and took it in one of my pincers. I held on very, very tight.

«Is everyone here?» Rachel said.

«We're all latched on,» Jake said.

«Follow me.» Arbron, in private thought-speech. As far as I knew, he hadn't told the other Andalites who he was.

It wasn't too hard to get the Taxxon mind to cooperate. Illim just told the Taxxon mind, «We're going on a mission with our hivemates through one of the Living Hive's tunnels,» which my Taxxon self was ready to believe, since two Taxxons were going on through the tunnel ahead of me. There was no tasty mud to eat here, but the glow of the Living Hive in the walls reassured me. We flew rapidly along the tunnel toward the Yeerk Pool, even as I mostly wanted to run screaming back.

Then the glow of the Living Hive faded, and we were just in a regular tunnel, slower going as Arbron in the front ate through the cave-ins. Every moment in the dark tunnel crawled by like a century. I kept thinking about the tunnel behind me, how easy it would be to turn back, and the Hunger, always the Hunger.

TSEEEEEEWWWWW!

«AAAAAAHHHH!» The tunnel filled with the reek of smoking Taxxon exoskeleton as my rear end burned from a laser shot. Ahead of me, Rachel and Tobias froze.

The upper wall of the tunnel rumbled, then caved in over Rachel and Tobias. They screamed too. Then Estrid said from behind me, «We do not wish to hurt you. Simply surrender the virus, and we can all return to the Living Hive peacefully.»

«Estrid!» Illim cried in my head. «She must have acquired a Taxxon morph and followed us. She got a Shredder from the ship and – »

«Rachel?» I cried. «Rachel! Tobias! Jake – »

«We're fine,» Tobias said. «Sai – and a Yeerk, I guess – are pinning us down. We can't move, but we're not hurt. The Chee made Sai – I guess it's pacifistic like them.»

For an awful moment, all I felt was crushing relief. I could turn back now, abandon this terrible course, and it wouldn't even be my fault. It would be Estrid's. She and the Aftran Plisam Pool had beaten us, fair and square.

Then Jake said in private thought-speech, «Rachel and Tobias can't move, but we can. Marco, Ax, Loren, and I are heading your way. Stall her.»

«Stall her?» Marco said. «Is that your brilliant plan for beating a TAXXON with a GUN?!»

At almost the same time, overlapping in my head, Arbron told me, «Estrid may have a Shredder, but she doesn't know these tunnels. I do. On my mark, tunnel down and forward at a 45 degree angle.»

«What about Rachel and Tobias?» I demanded.

«We'll be fine,» Tobias said. «Sai won't hurt us. Go on.»

«Estrid,» I said. «What are you going to do? The Andalite Fleet is coming. You know what they're like. They'll burn this whole planet to ash with you still on it if they think they have to.»

Illim said, «Animorphs. Are you all latched on?»

«Just a second!» Loren said, clearly panicking. «I'm almost – »

«I'll contact them,» Estrid said. «I'll tell them I nearly have it. I just need more time to ensure its safety. A better lab. They'll have the facilities I need on board their ships.»

«I'm on!» Loren yelled.

«MARK!» Arbron cried, and Illim shoved my face into the dirt and swallowed as fast as the Taxxon could manage.

«No! Stop!» TSEEEEEWWWWWWW! I screamed in agony as more of my back half burned away, but there was no time to morph off the damage. I could feel through the dirt that Arbron was ahead of me, digging down and to my left. I rushed to catch up, guzzling down dirt, tunneling. I felt the vibrations as Estrid rushed after me. But she didn't have a Yeerk to help her control herself, and I heard horrible crunching sounds as she stopped to eat a charred leg she'd burned off of me with her Shredder. My tunnel broke through and merged with Arbron's with a shower of dirt, and we were off.

«She's following us,» I said, clutching the vial close with my pincer arm. My back half burned horribly, and mud ingrained itself in the burn wounds.

«I know,» Arbron said, tense. «Soon, I'm going to tunnel out of your way. You're going to keep going and hit a thin layer of solid rock. Drill through, and get ready to fall.»

Drill through? I almost said, but Illim gave me a sense-memory of Taxxon teeth rotating like a drill bit into stone. Somewhere on my body in cockroach morph, Jake said, «Fall?»

«Into the Yeerk Pool,» Arbron said. «From the ceiling.» When the tunnel went dead quiet except for the sounds of him greedily burrowing, he added, «That's where you need the virus to go, right?»

«We're going to FALL on the Yeerk Pool from the CEILING?!» Marco screeched. «Arbron, dude, this is INSANE!»

«Just jump off me,» I said. «You'll be fine.»

«What about you?» Loren said.

«Me?» I said. I'd almost forgotten about me. «I'll morph.»

I could feel Estrid catching up to us. Arbron had to tunnel to move us forward, but Estrid just had to follow the path we'd already made. The vibrations came closer and closer.

Arbron stopped, then started to tunnel sideways. «Keep going,» he said. «I will try to delay Estrid.»

«Arbron,» Ax said. «You cannot morph away Shredder damage.»

«Taxxons can regenerate fairly well if they're not eaten before they have the chance,» Arbron said, disappearing into the side tunnel. I scooted up and started tunneling forward. «Besides, I won't delay her physically. I think I can distract her with my thought-speech alone.»

«You are the bravest of us, Warrior Arbron,» Ax said, and I figured he might be right.

As promised, I fetched up against solid rock. Illim pressed the Taxxon needle-teeth to it and spun them like a drill. SCREEEE! Vibrations and squeals sounded through me as my teeth bored through rock.

TSEEEEEEWWWWW!

«AAAAAHHHH!» More of my back half, up in smoke! «Oh God, are you all on my front?» I asked the other Animorphs, as soon as I could think past the pain.

«Yeah,» Marco said shakily. «But that was way too – »

«Surrender the virus!» Estrid raged.

SCREEEEE!

My head slipped through the hole in the rock. Then the rest of me. I fell. Estrid fell right behind me. I demorphed as fast as I could, shedding away all of the Taxxon morph except my pincer hand closed around the vial, exoskeleton at the end of my human arm. Estrid demorphed just as quickly, keeping her Taxxon pincer closed around the Shredder. She wrapped her tail around my leg, locking us together as we fell toward the Pool, reaching for the vial with her Andalite hand. Quincy screamed and flew at her face –

SPLOOOOOOOOOSSSSHHHH!

The crash into the Yeerk Pool was so violent I'm sure I would have passed out if it weren't for Illim. Stars exploded in my vision. All the breath rushed out of my body.

The vial broke to pieces in my Taxxon hand, spilling its contents into the Yeerk Pool.

Estrid's grip loosened from my leg. I exploded up through the Yeerk Pool surface, gulped down air, then ducked under the sludge again. Above the surface, I heard screams and Dracon fire.

I thought urgently at Illim, and he thought-spoke to Estrid, including the other Animorphs in it. «Estrid,» he said. «It's over. The virus is out. We need to get out of here, right now.»

«So if you have an awesome escape plan, now would be a great time to tell us about it,» Marco added.

For a moment, I was worried Estrid was about to leave us to figure it out on our own. Then she said, «We are both estreens.»

I caught on. I shuffled through the possibilities. Then Quincy stopped at one and thought, You know, that one's gotten us out of a lot of tight spots.

Illim saw the thoughts as they formed in my mind. «Do you have any very large morphs?»

«Yes,» Estrid said. «My mother is a marine biologist.»

I pictured the morph in my mind. Illim passed it on. He said to the other Animorphs, «Cover us. Once we're out, you should be able to escape in the chaos.»

«You think?!» Marco said, a little hysterically. I was feeling a little hysterical myself. I surfaced again for another gulp of air, and smelled my hair singe as someone fired at me.

«Marco is right,» Illim said. «This is insane.» But he concentrated on the Taxxon at the same time as I focused on the humpback whale.

The Pool shrunk around me. Around us, because there was another shape growing beside me in the sludge. Yeerks were displaced all around me. I focused carefully on keeping the whale's size and nothing else. It didn't completely work. I had the whale's thick blubbery skin instead of a Taxxon exoskeleton, and the whale's two dark eyes on either side of my head instead of the ring of red jelly eyes. But I had the most important things: the toothy mouth, the digestive system, and the Hunger.

The Hunger was immense.

I heaved myself onto the shore of the Yeerk Pool. So did another monstrously huge Taxxon, this one bloated like a purple and red balloon. I recognized it from Visser Five's morphs – Estrid was part Taxxon, part mardrut. Through the whale's eyes I saw smaller shapes coming out of the Pool: a bison, an Andalite, a gorilla, and a tiger, charging after the Controllers who fired their bee-sting Dracons at me.

I was hungry. I needed dirt.

Estrid and I lumbered toward the wall of the Yeerk Pool, flattening everything in our way. I felt Hork-Bajir blades slice at me as I went. A Hork-Bajir even climbed up onto my side, digging blades into my blubber, before Marco pried him off me and threw him to the ground. I pressed my huge mouth to the rocky side of the Yeerk Pool, and Illim rotated my teeth, sending rock flying everywhere. Estrid followed my example. We were through the rock a lot quicker than it had taken when I had been normal Taxxon size.

When the first glorious crumbs of dirt hit my tongue, I buried my enormous head into it and ate.

The wall of the Yeerk Pool rumbled and shook around us as we ate. Rock buckled and crumbled. Machines crashed and fell over. Scaffolding collapsed in on itself.

TSEEEEEEWWWWW!

«AAAAARRRRGGHHH!»

Something enormous had fired on me and Estrid from above. Once again, the back half of me was smoking and burning.

«A Bug fighter!» Estrid cried. «They've opened the portal at the apex of the Pool – that's a Dracon cannon!»

«Get out!» I screamed mentally at the other Animorphs as I burrowed deeper and deeper into the side of the Yeerk Pool, the walls buckling around me and Estrid. «This is your chance! Get wings and get out! We'll meet you at the sandbox entrance to the Hive!»

A rockslide fell behind me, crushing my back legs. It didn't matter. They were mostly burned off anyway. I kept eating. Illim reached out with his thought-speech. «Arbron? Arbron! Can you hear me?»

«Can I hear you – what do you mean can I – what did you do?!» Arbron cried.

«I'll tell you later,» Illim said. «Are Rachel and Tobias all right?»

«Yes. I went up to check on them.»

Illim suddenly sounded very tired. «Tell Sai and the Yeerk with them – Green Sky or Velger would be my guess – they should let Rachel and Tobias go. It's done. It's over.»

«It's not over,» I said, thinking of Estrid's dire warning yesterday. «It's only just starting.»

As we have seen in this module, the political consequences of Y-QV-12 were wide-ranging. But I also wanted to dedicate a section of this history to show the everyday, personal impact of the virus on the lives of affected Yeerks and their hosts. Here you will find eight primary documents from the crisis as it swept the Yeerk Empire on Earth.

Some important translation notes are called for. Each of these documents are noted with their original language, and have been translated into Galard and English if needed. There were many emergent names for the virus as it first appeared; I have replaced all of these with the name that would be widely used later: dreshked, in transliterated Yeerkish, which is related to the term for the Andalite blockade keeping the Empire from its homeworld, imbued with a sense of sundering and unjust exile.

– Foreword by Eslin 825

1.

The Friends of Aftran 942

[U] Helen

[Emoji of a Yeerk feeling its palps through mud. Indicates caution, tentative inquiry.] Has anyone else here been feeling… off lately?

[U] Bandit

[Emoji of a Yeerk using its body to protect another Yeerk from a strong current. Indicates worry.] Oh no, Helen, are you one of the supertasters now?

[U] Helen

Yeah. It sucks. I can barely concentrate on anything, the Pool smells so bad. Is it really just some of us who can taste it in the sludge? I thought maybe a Visser ordered everyone to pretend everything's fine.

[U] Visser3Gashad

I have it too [Sadness emoji]

[U] HackersVeleek

I've been monitoring Visser Twenty-Five's private chat channels. So far, they're as confused as everyone else. Don't have any solid numbers yet, but it seems to be affecting efficiency and productivity among poolies. Hosties are getting the effect too, but only in the Pool.

[G] Madra

My host and I work in Pool maintenance. We're already getting orders to change filters and scrub outtake tubes more often. As if we don't already have enough work. [Emoji of Yeerk flattening against the bottom of the Pool. Indicates resignation, submission, embarrassment.]

[T] Derane0

It's probably just that the Sub-Vissers overworked the Pool maintenance staff, and now more sensitive Yeerks can tell how grimy it's getting in here. Sooner or later they're gonna figure out you need extra staff, Madra.

[U] Bandit

[Emoji of a Yeerk scrunching up. The equivalent of a human eye-roll emoji.] Optimism? From a peacenik in the Yeerk Empire? Dream on.

2.

Log: Medical Bay Three

Medical Officer on Duty: Ifflek 921

Date: Generation 696, late-cycle, siar-rane 122

Thirty-three poolies and ten feeding hosties reported complaining of a hypersensitivity to perceived contamination in the Pool, leading to dizziness, disorientation, and loss of concentration. While most Yeerks do not report these symptoms, I suspect this may be a consequence of today's Animorph attack on the Pool; it is impossible to know what kinds of dangerous contaminants an Animorph could have introduced to the Pool medium. I have requested extensive chemical testing on the Pool.

Date: Generation 696, late-cycle, esh-rane 123

Sixty-two more poolies and twelve more hosties reporting the same symptoms, and I suspect there is under-reporting for fear of retaliation from Sub-Vissers. So far, the standard tests have returned normal – no known contaminants, though of course there are always unknowns. We can't rule out infection; we do exchange with different parts of the Yeerk Empire regularly, and an outbreak of a disease elsewhere can be brought here. I recommend we activate the quarantine Pool and transfer over all sick Yeerks.

Date: Generation 696, late-cycle, tef-rane 123

Quarantine proves difficult to implement among poolies, as Yeerks are difficult for hosts to individually identify and capture, and many Yeerks do not wish to volunteer for quarantine, away from their friends and their work. I recommend implanting tracking chips into Yeerks so sick ones can be easily identified and isolated. Many more poolie cases today. Sick hosties are much easier to find and isolate. Strange new symptoms arise in the ten first hostie cases, most notably dangerous lapses in ability to control their hosts. I recommend that involuntary hosts of active cases be immediately reassigned to healthy Yeerks.

3.

It is with great sorrow that we must announce to the Grash Akdap Pool the untimely death of Felshek 1028 from an unidentified illness.

Felshek 1028 was a cybersecurity expert working directly under Sub-Visser 22. They did important work maintaining the integrity of the Empire's data against Andalite, Animorph, and Yeerk traitor attempts at hacking and infiltration. They were known as a great admirer of the Vissers who studied the military history of the Empire and the Sulp Niar Pool on the homeworld. Their service to the Empire was valued, and they will be greatly missed.

A remembrance token for Felshek 1028 will be dropped in the Akdor Sector of the Pool on esh-rane at the end of first shift. If you will not be a part of the remembrance ceremony tomorrow, you must be quiet and respectful when passing through Akdor Sector.

If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to take them to your commanding Sub-Visser.

Comments

Oh no. Oh, by the Kandrona, no.

– Felshek 270

An unidentified illness? What the dapsen?

– Trafit 829

I worked with Felshek 1028. They were sick with dreshked. It's obvious what happened here.

– Falsen 228

Hey, Vissers, I have a question for you: when are we going to get answers about dreshked? What is it? Did the Animorphs do this? Why did Felshek die?

– Deseek 1093

Comments have been turned off.

4.

Private Message – Sub-Visser Ninety-Two

Ipsel 1438

I and the other creche caretakers for the Shakdap spawning have thought about this deeply ever since the first deaths were reported. Here is my proposal for a creche safety plan going forward.

We designate a System-class Nova ship as a quarantine ship for the grubs. The ship is cloaked and run by a skeleton crew. The only inhabitants of the ship's Pool are the grubs and their caretakers. Contact with the outside world is kept to a minimum. Deliveries once every ten rane of Pool maintenance supplies, food for the skeleton crew's hosts, and any replacement parts needed for the ship. All deliveries are contactless through the ship's airlocks and go through decontamination before use.

We can't all stay safe from dreshked and still maintain our Empire. But at least we can keep the children safe.

Sub-Visser Ninety-Two

Request denied. Figure out a plan that doesn't take one of our top orbitside assets out of commission.

Ipsel 1438

Then we need another planetside Pool large enough to accommodate all of the grubs in the Grash Akdap Pool. In a separate facility, so we can minimize transmission between it and Grash Akdap.

Sub-Visser Ninety-Two

Request denied.

5.

Visserarchy Private Message Well

#planning-proposals

Post proposals for new initiatives here. Do not debate proposals in this channel; discussion belongs in #proposal-discussion.

Visser Twenty-Five

Two Sub-Vissers have already shown symptoms of dreshked. If we want to keep the disease from spreading through the Visserarchy, we need to act boldly and we need to act now.

We need to round up all available Taxxons – uninfested only, to ensure there are no Yeerk dreshked carriers involved. We use them to excavate a completely separate chamber to the main Pool complex. We recall all portable Pools currently in circulation and strip out the Kandrona generators. I calculate that with ten portable Kandrona generators, we can produce enough radiation to support a Pool that can continuously feed fifty Yeerks at a time. This should be enough to sustain the Visserarchy through the crisis.

This separate Pool complex must be self-sufficient. We must not bring our personal assistants or bodyguards unless they are uninfested Taxxons. We have to help each other subdue our hosts while we are feeding. To bring anyone else in is to risk infection. Here is where we show our mettle. Are we capable of swimming under our own power, or do we need jumped-up poolies to serve our every whim?

6.

Memo to Pool Sanitation

Subject: New directives for corpse removals

Sniffer bots have now been deployed in the Pool to detect the chemical signature of a recent death. When a corpse has been found, the sniffer bots emit a sound at a frequency clearly audible to Gedds only. We also have deployed additional inflatable rafts around the Pool perimeter rated for Gedd weight, and nets with tighter mesh weave, as you have requested. These steps will facilitate the rapid location and removal of corpses from the Pool.

The new policy is that you must refuse to answer any questions about your work. Do not tell anyone about the concentration of decomposition bacteria in the Pool, do not tell anyone how many corpses you have retrieved, do not comment. Causing widespread panic is counterproductive and will only make your jobs harder.

Remembrance tokens must all now be dropped at the same time at the end of the rane. The spread-out remembrances have caused great disruption in the Pool. We can minimize this disruption by holding all of them simultaneously at one time and one place.

7.

Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine's Regiment

#voluntarycontrollers

A channel for Yeerks with voluntary hosts to discuss how to optimize and leverage our cooperative relationships with our host bodies. Remember to report any subversive activity to Esplin1871, the content moderator for the Grash Akdap message wells.

[VISSER] Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine

An important announcement. As of next shift, you are all reassigned to Pool Security.

Edrin 1012

Sub-Visser? With all due respect, my host is an elderly human, and in no physical condition to haul around unruly involuntaries.

Garmiray 1332

My host and I are happy to serve the Empire in any way we can, but we have no training in security.

[VISSER] Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine

Enough! You will be issued Dracon beams and you will follow the orders of experienced security staff. We need all Pool security to be voluntary Controllers only. I am logging off now, but I expect to see you all at my office at the beginning of next shift.

Eslin 818

Stop being whiny little dapsens, everyone. Haven't you heard what dreshked does to hosties? The last thing we need is a Pool guard losing control over their involuntary host. The hosts will grab the Dracon beams off their belts and start shooting everyone in sight.

Eslin 818

Unless you're worried your host isn't so voluntary after all. Worried they'll get ideas if you catch dreshked and they have a Dracon beam on hand? Pathetic. I know my host would never betray me or the Empire.

8.

Transcript of a phone call to Governor Celia Hernandez

Location: Undisclosed

Time: 9:02 PM Pacific Standard Time

Lieutenant Kimberley: This is the office of Governor Celia Hernandez. How may I help you?

Sergeant Park: Can you transfer me to the Governor?

Lieutenant Kimberley: Of course, Sergeant Park. Stand by. Governor Hernandez? A call for you from Sergeant Park, of Third Squad.

Governor Hernandez: Same unit?

Lieutenant Kimberley: Of course. I know which calls to screen.

Governor Hernandez: Transfer her over.

Sergeant Park: Governor Hernandez?

Governor Hernandez: Speaking.

Sergeant Park: Is Lieutenant Kimberley still on the line?

Governor Hernandez: No.

Sergeant Park: Are you sure? I need to speak to you privately.

Governor Hernandez: Hang on, I'll go to his desk and check. [Pause] He's definitely not on the line.

Sergeant Park: Good. Your bunker is compromised, Governor. You aren't safe.

Governor Hernandez: What? What happened?

Sergeant Park: This is going to take way too long to explain. You're taking the right precautions, but there's still so much you don't –

Governor Hernandez: If you're talking about the aliens, Sergeant Park, I know about them, so you can skip straight to the real intel.

Sergeant Park: Oh, God. Thank God. Governor, Lieutenant Kimberley is one of them. They got him last week. You need to –

Governor Hernandez: How do you know?

Sergeant Park: Ma'am, I know because I'm one of them. If I call you again, you can't trust me. Don't listen to anything I say. I managed to get free of its control somehow – it's never worked before, but right now it's working, and I knew I had to warn you before it gets hold of me again.

Governor Hernandez: Thank you, Sergeant. Go on.

Sergeant Park: You need to trust Sergeant Li. They don't have him yet. Get in touch with him. And be careful with Lieutenant Kimberley, ma'am. Don't let him know you're onto him yet.

Governor Hernandez: Don't worry. I got it.

Sergeant Park: Good luck, ma'am. Uh, what else can I tell you? Do you need to know how many Yeerk spaceships there are in Earth orbit?

Governor Hernandez: [uncaps a pen] It couldn't hurt.

Sergeant Park: There are –

[Call disconnected by operator Lieutenant Kimberley.]

19