The Assignment
Star Trek – Animorphs
Personal log, stardate 5801.01.
This entry will serve as a comprehensive log for further study of recent events. Upon completion, it will be sent to those capable of responding to the potential threats stated therein.
I trust those involved to maintain confidentiality regarding vulnerable persons within our charge.
The Enterprise has taken onboard two individuals, originally referred to as 'specimens', in a violent undertaking. Intent to open first contact with a new race necessitated their pacification. After two attempts at opening a mind meld, rebuffed by the female, the third found success and I gained entry to her innermost thoughts.
In respect for her privacy, I have allowed for the moniker 'Cindy Crawford' despite unwitting shared information to the contrary. This may be one of the few respects for personhood we can afford at this time.
I found myself in the midst of powerful emotion. Memories, influences, of a most grievous sort.
Our new visitors, Cindy and her companion 'Teddy', are not of alien origin. Both are human. Her mental state, subjected to terrors fit to break a lesser being, spoke to baseline organic and psychic structures of every human being I have encountered. She has suffered. Terrible pain.
The log will mark my difficulty in comprehending how a child may be sent to commit war on behalf of unwitting, or perhaps unwilling adults. In her I sensed a strong paranoia and at times unwilling commitment to the fight.
It became clear that these two could not be human, as we understand the term. No wars have been fought on Earth for two centuries. Yet the skyline and culture witnessed through her eyes, if I am not mistaken, belong to the late 20th century. If she does originate from Earth, it is not the Earth we know.
Time travel. I suspect a form of interdimensional displacement as well. Most troubling.
Contamination from exposure to our culture and technology may be irreversible at this point. Returning our guests to their own continuum is necessary, but I fear for the world they left behind.
For this record, I will state the following facts:
Two interdimensional time travellers, contacted by advanced civilization despite primitive backgrounds.
Alternate-Terran origin.
A disturbance in the peace unlike that of our own timeline, denoting some great struggle in an alternate Earth's history.
A lack of surprise or ignorant fear in response to advanced technology, relating to said struggle with an unsettling familiarity.
Of most concern, a race of beings known to the children as 'Yeerks', capable of appearing entirely human.
Incredible loss and pain in the human known as Cindy, a tragic example of the ancient human term 'child soldier'.
Following meditation on these facts, my decision to reveal this data despite an unfortunate breach of confidentiality through an uninformed meld may be seen as necessary.
It pains me.
However, personal and professional review reveals the dangerous qualities inherent in them.
These Yeerks. They may not have remained in their universe of origin. It may be necessary to further interrogate the child for our own protection - and for her own.
End log.
Click.
The small sound echoed, despite padded corners meant to muffle most acoustics.
Having spoken plenty for one morning, despite talking and holding hands and whatever else required the doctor at his post, the well-trained vocal chords crackled. "So, you see… you see my problem."
If McCoy had ever needed to apply the term 'thousand-yard stare' to a preteen barely outta diapers in all his distinguished service, it might have let him breathe. Might have loosened up the terrible storm clawing his heart down, dragging it like fresh fruit off a low-hanging branch into being coldly numb.
Cindy tried a smile. It fit her face better than the crying, maybe. Leonard unconsciously felt for his own pulse, noted the racing to nowhere.
"I guess your friend is more like I thought, mister." Her face glinted as she turned to wipe, hard, at a cheek. Pink crystals left on her face sparkled where they'd stuck beyond a dry scrub.
"Miss…" Stool a comfortable distance, he thought, and scampered it an inch closer. Caught her eye. "I'm sorry. I need to talk to you about those Yuck things."
Yes. There's a little grin. Another hard scrub wiped it and a pink scatter away. He took it as the victory it was.
"It's, um… it's Yeerk. Not Yuck."
Wiggle the eyebrows. Catch the edge of her blanket between his fingers, keep far enough to reach over a distance and overextend the torso. Allow an admittedly cheeky smile when she giggles. Not so hardened, Mr. Spock. Maybe not the tin soldier you were imagining. Not – damaged.
Not permanently. He hoped.
"Could'a fooled me! Well, I suppose I wouldn't know anything about 'em aside from apparently looking like one." A pause. Hopefully for comedic effect, if McCoy could dredge up a smidge of confidence to pull it off. "A Yuck."
Cindy shrugged. Not Cindy. Well, yeah, suppose she was Cindy for now. He kept the frown off his face through significant effort.
"No. You don't look like one at all."
Soft skin. Smooth on the raised veins of his wrist. Her thumb slid over them, over the back of his hand. Stretched so far to keep that safety, that distance, started to hurt. Cindy met his eyes and the softness there took the last of his breath away.
"Dr. McCoy, my name isn't important, but you need to know what these Yeerks are capable of. What to look for, if they," a swallow ducking her head, hot determination lifting it to lock eyes with him again, "if they start doing here what they're doing back home."
It wouldn't do to injure himself like this, so Bones inched closer. No sign of fear from the girl, and he sat it directly to her right. Cindy held on to him. The contact drifted but she didn't let it end.
Words fell out, one at a time. Slowly. Gaining speed as her grip tightened, a comfort becoming dull pain that Bones didn't have the heart to stop. She looked at everything, at him, at the walls, off to the right and left. Some of it probably wasn't true.
He didn't care. Enough had to be.
"The Yeerks are parasites. They, they look like slugs. But they're a lot worse than the common garden variety. Alien. Not that," waving her free hand and a little panicked, "that alien is bad. I've met good aliens, too. But the Yeerks… they're evil."
"Evil?"
"They're slavers." Dropped in the hush between them, cold and solid as a torpedo. "Body snatchers."
How could a slug-like parasite snatch bodies? You'd think Leonard would know better than to ask himself, anyone, questions he didn't want the answer to.
Cindy answered the quiver on his face, waiting for it. "It's how they conquer entire worlds. I've seen it happen, to my, to my friend, J – Jonas. No, not his real name either," impatience clipping the words til he barely caught the meaning, "but who cares? Yeerks climb into your head. They go into your brain. Then they take everything."
Jonas. Glad to be past needing written notes, Bones let it flow without stopping to ask.
Wiping her nose, unhappily dry, Cindy didn't let him get up to collect more water. Insistent on holding his hand, she actually glared until McCoy sat down again.
"Let me finish. Yeerks can look like anyone. Act like anyone. They don't just take your bodies, they take your soul and smile like everything's okay. They use your hands and tongue to lie and trap your friends, your loved ones, than drag them down, kicking and screaming, to the Pool. The Yeerk Pool."
Take your… Bones nearly started, fingers falling from his ear at her knowing gaze.
She sighed. "Yeerks are the enemy I've been… we've been fighting."
"…For over a year."
"Yeah. Yeah."
A deep, deeper sigh and she slumped against the cushions. The youngest she'd looked since that first moment of waking after the Frankensteinian horror he had to swallow and accept, somehow, as the current medical practitioner of this actually wounded charge, no matter the incredible childish resilience keeping her stable. Keeping Cindy able to recount it. Any of it.
If Dr. McCoy didn't have the greatest confidence in Mr. Spock's inability to lie on-record, he'd want to curse it off as some wild alien influence trying to get his head out of the game. No, alright, he'd heard the vulcan improvise with the truth, so to speak, more than once.
But Spock wouldn't lie to him. Not to the CMO. Not about a child.
"Sorry to dump all this on you." Squeezing fists over eyes as Cindy brought actual moisture to burn under rapid blinks, the girl seemed to grow by the decade as he watched. Even now. "It's kind of a relief to, to tell someone. An adult. We've been fighting alone, so long…"
"Never." Bones' grip didn't startle Cindy into growing hair out her ears. Just a glance. Curious. "Never 'pologise fer that. Cindy, you're just – yer just a kid. How could you be fighting? A war? An honest-to-heaven war? What, by turnin' into a dog and barkin' some?"
"Try ripping out throats." Reflexively wiping her hand around her neck, Cindy's half-smile chilled his blood. Too much real humour there. Even the tiniest hint didn't belong in that flawless face.
An explosive huff. "The six of us, we could all do it. Turn into animals, different kinds, for any situation." Clenched fists together, one over the other. Small-like. "Hole the size of a mole? Just need to find one, and Bob's your uncle."
Flashing her arms out, clawed fingers, a smirk to show just the tip of a canine. "Someone in your way? Get teeth, claws, and the hunting instinct. All you need in one furry package."
Bones must have dropped his gaze. He found himself staring at white knuckles on pale sheets. Clenching them, like he'd like to throttle 'em.
A job to do. Comforting, yeah, and solid. For Cindy. Better help Cindy.
"The Yeerks – they can, can look like any one of us?" The bottom dropped out of his question, sudden realization a sort of awe in his voice. "How on earth did you trust us? How are you talking to me now?"
"I didn't. I still don't, I guess. But I'm alive. Any Yeerk would've… not left me alone in here."
"Because we let you live."
"No, letting me live would've been the worst part." Cindy let herself breathe, a foot sliding out to hang over the side of her bed. "Sorry if that sounds morbid, but any Yeerk would give up a regular human body to get mine."
"Oh, I bet," McCoy grumbled, playing up a shaky hand 'til it trembled between them. "I'm not quite so young as you, not quite star-conquerin' material, is that what you're saying?"
She laughed. It sounded lovely. "I mean, yeah. No! No, stop smiling like that," Cindy shoved at his arm, letting McCoy slip with a genuine yelp off the covers, "I mean my morphing ability. It's rare. They can't infest me when I'm a wolf, or a badger, or a bird, so lying vulnerable in here is like laying out the welcome mat for being infested."
"You make it sound like staying in here was some kind of test – for us."
Cindy didn't answer that one.
"Alright. Well, Cindy, thank you for coming clean. It's helped us understand your situation a little better." And confuse a whole lot else, but why rush? Time a-plenty for revising that report to Starfleet, and no-one'd challenge his authority to take Cindy's case until Bones was completely satisfied.
Who knew when that would be. When hell froze over.
He didn't make to get up. Sat there, patting her hand over his, the hold back where they'd started without him intending or noticing. A level, slow heartbeat, breathing down to 12 per minute, non-existent pain levels. Cellular rate still a little high. Normal. Good.
"…I've got to go look at my other patients, kid."
Cindy nodded, looking straight ahead. The small hand tightened and let go. "Okay."
Untangled, slow for her sake but already thinking of the real load of paperwork he'd have to sort, a quick call to the planet to inform the captain about their guests, McCoy made for the door.
"…Doctor! Wait, can I have something to write on? There's more." Glistening with concern, sweet heart. "More about the Yeerks you need to know."
Didn't hurt none. Ah. He had to calm down a little, have a glass of his own to settle down and think clearly before trying to write like a professional. Spock had enough fun mocking his normal speech.
Write on. "Sure, honey. I'll get you a PADD to type it all out. We'll connect 'em up so I can see it all from my office, even if we're apart, if you like."
"Yeah. I'd like that." Should have been a smile. It was too sad to be a smile. "I'd like that a lot."
Thus McCoy spent too much more of his morning trying not to go visibly green and swearing, quietly, under his breath, while taking his own notes. Annotating them. Underlining.
Signs of Yeerk Infestation. Cautionary Report. The Case of Cindy Crawford…
