The Assignment

Star Trek – Animorphs


The still environment of my new holdings, my home away from home, screamed despair in a voice increasingly hard to ignore.

I'm what you'd call a farm girl. The wake-up to the rooster's crow, avoid stomping in manure on my way to school, spend all my spare hours in a barn filled with sick animals type.

Silence is something I've found in rare, usually unpleasant places.

The Blade Ship, for one. Even then I had terse contact with my friends, trapped together and paraded for the Visser's amusement.

The hum of a force field covering my cell door let me rest for a while.

Morphing is exhausting. I was exhausted. Legs crossed beneath me burned, my hands rubbing feeling into them to little effect.

I kept doing it. Knew the uses of a good massage. And it gave me something to do.

A simple room, one swivel chair and a table. I could sit on the chair. Tap restless fingers on the table. Stare at a black screen set into the wall that wouldn't activate, leaving me guessing whether it was supposed to be a television or not. I'd have watched Brady Bunch reruns if it let me focus on something else for a little while.

Rather than on the damage I'd caused, or the damage inside of me. Dr. McCoy didn't understand it, either. He'd still had plenty to say before he left, a nice fill for time and block on my upset stomach.

Nothing to eat meant nothing to linger in a nose still sweet on nasty things.

But managing it all left a buzzing mind. An unfocused mind. No books or friends, no phone, no last-minute questions without a good answer but having all the time in the world to tell Jake what I thought of them.

I knew it wasn't just to figure things out. Sitting together, watching Tobias in the rafters in turn watching a little mouse creep across the straw, it felt as comfortable to say nothing. To just sit.

If he was here, obviously I wouldn't be alone anymore. True of Rachel, too, or Ax. Even Marco.

I didn't know if I wanted the others here. I grabbed the front of my leotard and pulled it from the twinge in my heart.

I wanted Jake.

A burst of restlessness shot my feet under me and I paced. It didn't settle. A hand on each wall, each turn, edging behind the table to squeeze past.

Had to do something. Couldn't message the doctor, not again. Didn't know anyone else's numbers. If they used numbers.

I tugged at my hair. Sighed.

"Okay. We're safe. I can do this."

Because at heart, every Animorph is a little bit crazy.

See, I'd been thinking. This place - the 'brig' - could trap an Andalite. Could keep it contained. Keep me contained.

So if I morphed in here, no-one would be hurt. And if I figured out what's wrong with me, if I fixed it, well, the time wouldn't be wasted.

I might be nuts. This place might be driving me nuts.

But. But if I could control it.

Blowing air out from both nose and mouth, my eyes crossed before closing. Concentrating. Focused.

Morph. Keep them safe. Figure it out.

Every body I've inhabited, taken a part of me and controlled, had their challenges. For some the acquiring process put us in danger. For others it came after becoming that animal.

Instincts powerful enough to make muscles jump without any thought, to escape and survive with the speed to outwit a hungry predator.

I needed safe. I needed control.

Tiny hairs on my arms stood on end. A prickling heat rushed over my entire body, a light cough in reflex as sweat beaded on my upper lip. My chest made a weird flipping sensation, like my heart flip-flopped in place.

"No," I said. "No... No!"

I let go of the morph. Remembered myself. Cassie. Me!

It stopped.

Come on. A glance down caught the rough fur splitting the hairs in twos and threes. Nothing big. I flexed my fingers, watching them dance like they should. Strong fingers.

The heat dissipated like it never existed. Free of it.

Humming. A look around the doorframe caught nothing. No security guard. No visible cameras. Just the forcefield.

A real-life force field. Crazy what becomes normal, expected, in being part of Earth's secret defence force. Earth's protectors.

Part of the team. The Animorphs, so far away, still fighting, I hoped. I wished.

Of course, if Tobias was still fighting, he'd better be doing it off the spaceship. He wouldn't leave without me unless he had to, unless it meant living to fight another day. Totally alone.

I wasn't worried about him being alone.

Shaking out my fingers, sick to my teeth of thinking the same wheel of torture over again, a few steps centred the room. I could do this. I had to do this. It's just a little sick feeling. It didn't feel very good but even Rachel'd figured it out in the end. She's not the so-called 'morphing expert'.

Yeah, I had an idea what was going on. Not a complete one. And I knew the answer to it would mean trying again. So I tried again.

Breathe in. Crack.

The hairs withdrew noiselessly. In their place, imprints of arrowheads, all over. The skin of my shoulder ripped, an awful wet sound over cracks of bones and sinew.

Hold it. A thousand times, a thousand worse situations. Control.

The walls remained solid, growing taller as my legs shrunk to the width of toothpicks. I stood beneath the roof of a table. You haven't seen all of humankind until you've seen the chewing gum, dried boogers and graffiti below the hood of your average table.

My eyes, expanding, rimmed blood orange, found a focus. Tally-marks, scratched out of sight.

It made me laugh.

Heat. Prickling. The soft feathers on my head ruffled, their points burning through skin.

Morphing shouldn't hurt. I gagged. Acrid taste on my tongue, a tiny thing in my hardening lips. No. Scaly feet staggered beneath my still-shrinking bulk.

How? How could I keep control? Focusing harder, the wings, the keel and flight muscles, it flourished like fire. Muddling organs, some popping in, others twisting into new spaces.

The tips of my new wing-feathers touched floor. Hard. Heavy.

No. «Don't you dare,» I hissed.

They remained stubbornly un-owl-like.

Soon, all too soon, it finished. A great horned owl perched on cool cement and I watched through its eyes. Great vision. A newly rapid beat below my breastbone competed with a seeming never-ending restlessness.

Tail twitching, a sharp flutter brought me on top of the table. Talons hooked over its edge.

Funnily enough, being an owl felt more real than languishing in a cell as myself. And I couldn't smell the trails of patrolling guards anymore.

Feathers laid flat in cool relief. My skin prickled no more.

«But... Why?»

As I gazed throughout the cell, strangely at ease with the small room, the lights went out.

And snapped back in.

Dark, deep red. It washed over me and the walls like blood.

Bang!

Loud!

Pain, reeling and sliding off my table edge to the floor, I staggered.

The horned owl's small head ached. Noise. Sensitive hearing demolished by a klaxon, whirring in and out like a dream. An agonizing dream.

«Aaaaargh!» I moaned.

Thud. Thud thud thud.

In the terrible noise, my owl would've missed it. Trembling travelled up through the floor, pounding, nearby.

Boots on the ground.

Before I knew it, the forcefield, a shining light in the darkness, flicked out. Easily as a light switch.

And in its place a pale oval rushed in. A face.

Twisted, mouth scowling. Wielding the jagged end of a dracon beam in his right hand.

The owl saved my life. It pressed against the table stand. Flattened its entire body like a fluffy pancake.

Angry voices curled the plumes of my brows. Human. Aggressive.

"Where is it?!"

"Find it! Find the Bandit!"

"I heard it! It's got to be in here," said a third, followed by a fourth, a fifth. The last one didn't fit through the door. Their feet set wide across from the door, on guard. Watching for a running Andalite.

Or hey, a human girl. Because they knew.

They knew. I'm so screwed.

Their black shoes stomped all around me. I readied myself.

"She's not in here. Someone - hey! Go look down the hall!"

"The girl couldn't have escaped. She wasn't supposed to be capable -"

"Ventilation? An insect, the air ducts?"

"Sealed before shut-down."

Every stitch of clothing, the faint reflections on the floor. Each movement stood out perfectly. As if telegraphed to the perfect nocturnal hunter.

"Check under there, then join Sine 302." A pair of boot tips pointed at the table. At me. "At speed! We need to be out of here in three!"

I spread my wings. Perfect sync with the owl. They rose smoothly, wing ends morphed back into proper feathers somewhere in the midst of mind-turning stillness.

A gap between their legs. I waited, watched and tensed. Coming.

There!

The owl took off like a bullet.

Cries barely started behind me when I flared my wings, clumsily kicked the opposite wall from my cell and banked hard left.

Just missed scoring talons across a uniform shirt drenched in red. My tail feathers split from fingers, combing, grabbing.

A sharp pinch added haste to the hard flapping needed in completely motionless air. Short one feather took nothing from the cut and swoop in narrow walls.

"The Bandit!"

"Kill her! Shoot!"

Tseeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Tseeeeeeew!

Missed!

Heat flashed across my back. I dropped to low altitude. No prickling beneath the skin. My morph was fine.

Down the hall, air silent over my curved feathers. A door. No time to stop, stomping behind and bright lines of light searing holes ahead of me. I hoped against hope and didn't slow down.

Wooosh. Startled, a curly-haired man yelled and fell backwards. He stared up from the floor as I blazed into another dark corridor.

«Sorry!» I called.

Down the hall! No-one else in sight for now. My head pulsed in time with an alarm, the siren following my flight, shoulders tight in effort to keep flapping. Keep burning energy.

Attacked by Controllers! On board the ship! An infestation, active and aggressive. They shut down the lights. The air. I hadn't noticed that.

The morphing, the creep of illness or whatever it was. I'd chosen the worst time to practice.

And I couldn't stay an owl. Couldn't keep flying, flapping like a madwoman to stay up. Had to remorph.

The doors mixed with what I remembered to be white walls. Everything red.

Emergency lights, maybe. Whatever the Yeerks did, it caused plenty of chaos.

Someone had to have noticed. They couldn't have infested the entire ship already. I needed air. Needed to get help.

Keep flying!

A branch in corridors. I flapped hard, tail brushing the carpet. Took the right turn.

No idea where it went, hoped for a break and pumped my wings so hard I feared they'd fall off.

I'm getting tired of running from aliens trying to kill me. But I wasn't about to stop and ask for a time-out.

Beak open to pant, my little heart started at an opening door. It slid apart and revealed the most brilliant set of lights I'd ever seen, owl eyes reacting too slowly to keep from crashing.

Pupils shrank, head ducked and wings thrust forward to stop. Dropped to the floor. Landed hard, legs rebounding to keep my fragile body from breaking. Light. So bright it hurt.

White light. Too visible.

Weary, I raised my wings to take off again. And paused.

Doors. They opened and shut. Duh.

If I found a button to close them or got away from the motion sensor, it could be as good a place as any.

My head turned 180 degrees to check the hall, eyes half-closed to compensate for the darkness. Which didn't work. I looked back.

What I'd forgotten peered at me from the bright lights. A guy barely older than me stood in the midst of painful brightness and blinked out over my head.

High cheekbones and curious expression, his complete lack of fear made my decision for me.

I forwent trying to fly. The man stepped from my Texas Shuffle past his feet and into the depths of what turned out to be a very small room. Irredeemably polite. My small body didn't get stomped on.

«Hey.»

His entire face went huge. Mouth, eyes, even ears.

«Hey, don't panic. I need you to close the doors,» I said. «You can get out if you want, but I need to hide. I mean, I need to be safe, and - just close the door!»

A wide tilt to his head. Orange curls glinted over that youthful face. He frowned, glanced down the hall. Lingered. "Is there an emergency - a Red Alert? I didn't hear -"

«Close! Door! NOW!»

He hit a button.

The doors closed.

I slumped. The man looked at his own hand.

Looked at me. I met it with a signature blank expression.

«Thanks. But it's not over yet.»

"Did you... Need to go somewhere? Um. Who, who are you?" he chuckled strangely.

Poor guy hadn't heard of the crazy Animorph just yet. Here's hoping I wouldn't turn into a hammerhead shark and accidentally sandpaper his legs with my bare skin.

First world problems. Animorph problems.

«Yeah! Yeah, I need to...» Need to find a way out. Off the ship? But how?

There's no hope on an infested ship. Nowhere was safe. No-one was safe. Even he could be a particularly clever little slug, playing the long game.

And I couldn't afford to lose. I set a glare on him. Studied the uniform in clear white light.

Limited time here. Should I demorph?

"You don't sound well. We could go to Sickbay...?"

Doctor McCoy. An electric field pointed every feather on end. He had no idea. No more than the basics. I had to warn him. That meant getting close enough for thought-speech.

And that meant not being an owl, too weak and helpless against an entire crew of well-meaning ignorance.

I gave the guy a once-over. «Yeah. Sickbay. Which way is that?» I asked.

His hand drifted. A lever in the wall. "Up fifteen." He grasped it. "Deck 7."

«What are you -»

Movement. My heart beat faster.

A familiar, awful taste in my beak made me gag. Right. Owls have a gag reflex. Not like horses. I shuddered away that memory below hunched shoulders. «Are we moving?»

"Yes," he shrugged, red shirt loose. "Not travelled by starship before?"

«Not this kind. We're in an elevator?»

He shot me finger-guns. Like an actual child. "Turbolift. It's how we get around the ship."

And if my spatial perception could be trusted, a hollow sense of flight in the absence of any natural uplift or movement, we were moving very, very fast. Lights skittered through narrow windows as the lift passed entire floors in single blinks.

Right. Turbolifts. I knew the ship had elevators, remembered it now with that friendly scotsman I'd so brutally terrified. He'd talked so much I hadn't thought to ask more questions.

But I've seen spaceships. I've been inside of them, witnessed incredible living metal, laser beam weapons that could take chunks out of the moon and beings possessing power beyond any normal human on Earth.

I'm one of those beings. It's not that great.

Well, it's pretty great. But not that great.

An elevator, fast as it was, didn't faze adrenalin still curtailing to escape. For flight.

Wing muscles bunched as my head hooded over the floor, bent as if to brush the floor with my beak. Ready to flap. Ready, hopefully, for anything.

«I need to ask you something,» I said in a rush.

A smirk, head bobbing. "You can talk, miss Owl. I don't suppose you want me to take you to my leader?"

«No. I need something from you.» But first, he needed to not freak out. «And I'm not really an owl. You might want to look away for a second.»

He didn't.

Demorphing went rapidly, even for me, and soon I stood on bare human feet in my skin-tight leotard. A tension in his face may have been disgust. May have been curiosity. It didn't matter.

This is crazy. I can't do this. It's not right.

My hand wavered, outstretched. The crewman's eyes focused past them, on my face. He mouthed 'wow'.

"I need you to let me touch you," I said as if at a distance. As if someone else said it.

A frown pulled focus back to my hand. But I was already there, fingers wrapped around his collarbone, pinching at the sick taste in my mouth.

This was wrong.

This might be life-saving, and not just for me.

"Thanks," I whispered. Drawing away let him stand with the typical blankness of an acquiree. Then, I focused. Controlled the spasm of worry as change curled in my bones and grew out my hair. Did other things. I didn't think too hard about it.

"No," he demurred. "Thank you."

WHAP!

Wall. Floor. Nothing.

Nothing.

Dull ache. Aching. Sharp pain, pressure, a vise squeezed my skull apart. Wrong. Wrong!

It hurt!

Dirt grains and unnatural fibres scrubbed my face as I screamed. My mouth opened just fine, but my head! Couldn't move!

Shoved down, soft palms crushing me, facial muscles pliable and frozen in the croaking shout crawling out of my throat.

What? What was happening? I couldn't think. It hurt.

No. No, dawning horror, trying to see past the arms and wriggling uselessly against the horribly slick thing at my ear.

Yeerk! Inside my ear!

"NO!"

But a familiar furious glee in those empty eyes came close enough to count the bloodshot veins.

I could see his face just fine. It squashed against my own. Held down, wrists in one hand, ripping agony in his grip on my hair.

He'd hit me! My jaw ached from hitting the turbolift wall. And now -

And now...

Just as it had before so I felt again. It started so much faster than before. Than Aftran.

My fingertips twitched. I didn't want them to. Fists relaxed and lay like dead things. It travelled up to shoulders, the push away collapsed beneath the Controller's weight.

I felt every moment it stole another patch of me away. I saw it happen. And when the Controller, now bereft of his slug, fell away, my last rush to seize control fired iced nerves and caught just the tiniest slip of slimy slug between untrimmed nails.

I dug them in. The Yeerk's slick body shook like a living thing in my grip.

And slipped away.

My hand fell to the floor.

No. This couldn't be happening!

The pain, distant now, covered panic by flooding fully dawned horror past my prone body. Past the flesh, the movement foreign to me, not me, back to a place where I watched and cried out unseen.

It brought a malevolent chuckle to the bars of my cage.

My eyes flicked up to the doors. Focused on the panel. The Yeerk saw the numbers ticking by, slowed, gathered a film of comprehension.

«First floor. Andalite Bandits and other lost causes. Oh, a promotion thrown in for the low, low price of one stupid little girl.»

«No,» I whispered. «No.»

«Oh, yes,» it replied. «Now to get rid of the trash...»

It turned my head. Neck muscles complained to a new master.

The crewman lay prone just metres away. His eyes met mine and I felt my lip curl. Felt the changes come, helpless to stop it.

«If only I had more time! And a bit of privacy,» the Yeerk grumbled. «Such marvellous tools at my disposal! But perhaps the simplest - yes, and no evidence.»

It urged my limbs up to crawl. Hands and knees stiff, a spasm here and there smoothed in ten unending seconds until my body prowled up to just inches away. My breath puffed between gritted teeth, his deep blue eyes dilated to utter black.

I couldn't stop myself. The Yeerk dug under the man's shirt hem. Found a skin-warmed rounded object and tore it away on a small rip of cloth.

It coveted the item, hugging it to my chest. I saw what it wanted. I tried to say something, but it's like my mouth had nothing connecting it to me.

«Don't! Don't hurt him! You can't do that!»

I hated it. Hated myself for begging. Hated the Yeerk.

«Shut up,» it said. Calm. Very calm. «These 'phasers'... Quite efficient. Unfortunately so.»

"Goodbye, Mr. Tatum," someone else said with my voice.

It pointed the device.

My finger depressed the button by a matter of millimetres. My heart jumped on its own. Acid on my tongue.

Swish.

Cool air on flushed cheeks.

My neck swivelled so fast I had trouble keeping visual track.

Black pant legs, striding in, at my face. A sallow face hooked down to swoop, a blue-tinged avenging angel, on the man who still hadn't moved but to gape at his own death.

The poor man's face shrieked in soundless agony. Spock's hand gripped the junction of neck and shoulder, tensed as if holding in what I knew to be an iron grip. The Yeerk let me see it, wanting itself, I sensed, to understand.

Spock stared at me. The alien man.

The Yeerk recognised Spock. It almost spat at him, "What are you doing, Herun 332?"

"Saving your skin, ingrate," Spock, the Controller, rumbled. His voice twanged deep with some barely suppressed emotion. He released Tatum, the man's eyes shut as if asleep. My companion in devastation lay still.

They had him. And everything I knew, all of our secrets, now belonged to the Yeerks.

Despair muffled the clipped words. It didn't drown them out.

"What," the Yeerk sputtered, "I don't -"

"Even morphed into the ensign, there's a time limit, you fool!" Spock raised his voice. "Acting as Tatum means remaining on-site for longer than two hours. Your deception would fail, our intrusion detected!"

My Yeerk hissed, "You don't have the authority to stop me!"

"Oh," a grin split those stern lips like something out of a nightmare, "but I do. Better yet - I have a solution for this little problem. And all you have to do is follow my orders."