-Rachel-

We went into our quarters and I sat down while Marco demorphed.

"OK, so why were you a rat that looks like it belongs in a horror movie?" I asked shuddering as he demorphed. He sat down in another chair and looked at me.

"It's the only thing on this ship that I could morph without looking suspicious." He said. "Most animals don't commonly inhabit space ships, but those do."

"OK," I said, ready to discuss what to do next. "Well, we know for sure that there is something very suspicious about that secret compartment if there is a Gleet Biofilter at the entrance."

"Yeah, but now the only way to get in for sure is to morph Ganlor." Marco said. "Without blowing our cover, that is." He glanced at me and grinned. "The Xena approach won't work this time."

"OK." I sighed. "But we only have another week, assuming they can easily fix whatever you did to the Z-space computer, so we have to work quickly."

"The other option would just be to wait until we get to the Andalite homeworld and then follow him around." Marco suggested.

"No! We need to find out what it is before it gets to the Andalite homeworld. It might be too late when we get there!" I said urgently, "For all we know, there might be a nuclear bomb in there, or worse! It has to happen before we land. So how do we acquire Ganlor? It's the only way to get in there past the Gleet Biofilter."

"While he's asleep, maybe?" Marco said, thoughtfully.

"Yeah" I said, coming up with a plan. "I can morph to flea, somehow land on him, demorph when he's asleep and acquire him, then morph cockroach and slip under the door."

"But what if he woke up while you were morphing? Or you thought he was asleep, but he wasn't – fleas don't have real good senses." Marco reminded me.

"You have a better idea?" I asked, a little irritated that he was being so paranoid.

"Well, we talked about cobra venom before...I think I can control the dosage so he just sleeps a little longer than normal." Marco said.

"Cobra venom." I mused, warming up to the idea, but not too keen on the fact that I wouldn't be a big part of the action. "OK, so we monitor his habits. When it looks like he's going to his quarters to sleep, you morph the snake and hide in his room. I'll morph roach and sneak under the door after he's in already. You can bite him and we'll both demorph and acquire him so we can go into the locked cupboard."

"Um," Marco said hesitantly, "Is there a reason we both need to go? I mean, you could just stay here and ... "

He stopped suddenly when he saw my face. "Riiiiiiiiiiiight!" I said. "Like I'm gonna let you go in by yourself without backup. It's too risky. No way. I'm going too, that's final."

"Ay-Ay Captain Xena." He said looking almost startled by my insistence.

We started monitoring when Ganlor went into his quarters for long periods of time – when he wasn't working the bridge. Two days later, we got ready to carry out the plan. Marco hid in Ganlor's room, in one of the unlocked cabinets with the door cracked partially so he could still get out when it was time. I morphed roach and followed Ganlor. I told Marco when he was in and waited outside the door.

In about ½ hour, Marco called to me in thought-speak. -He's asleep and I bit him, so he should stay that way for a while. You can come in now, Xena.-

I crawled under the door into the dark room as a roach and demorphed. Marco was already half human. We finished and acquired Ganlor. I morphed first, but we quickly realized that the quarters were not going to be large enough for 3 fully grown Andalites. We would have to take turns.

I walked up, opened the door, entered through the Gleet BioFilter, and demorphed. Marco did the same. We walked in.

-Marco-

We entered a whole secret compartment on the ship. There was a soft glow coming from one side. We walked over to it and found a Yeerk pool! We looked into it and saw the portable Kandrona and probably about 100 Yeerks swimming around in the sludge. I was surprised that we hadn't realized this compartment was here – the ship wasn't very big, so it didn't seem like there would be room for much that we couldn't see.

There was a computer at the other end of the room. I morphed Ganlor and walked up to it, to see what I could find out. Rachel was right behind me.

-Oh my God!- I exclaimed privately to Rachel. -They've infested every couple that's gone on this trip - right before landing on the Andalite homeworld! And we were supposed to be next!-

Rachel looked like she was going to be sick. I looked at her. -What are we going to do?-

"We have to do something. We can't let them keep this up."

-Let's go back to the room to discuss it.- I suggested, feeling drained. -We've learned all we need to know.-

I went back through the BioFilter and demorphed. Rachel morphed, then went through, and demorphed. We both went back to our quarters, thoroughly exhausted from all the repeated morphing.