OK, first I just want to apologize for not updating sooner. I planned on updating again before Christmas, but everything got crazy-busy and I didn't end up having time... and then after New Years, I sort of forgot where I was going with the mission part. But I can't forget anymore – I have an outline from here to the end! So fear not, it will be finished!!!!!

Many thanks to star29818, Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole, emi07, and Faith360 for your reviews. I hope that this chapter fulfills your expectations. Again, very sorry for the long delay.

Disclaimer: KA Applegate owns the Animorphs but, for what it's worth, I created Melea and Kyger!

On the Andalite Homeworld...

-Rachel-

Oh boy. Talk about your uncomfortable conversation. Trying to explain human kissing to aliens? And now those little blue Andalites were playing with the computer, squinting at one another with their stalk eyes and probably talking about us in private thoughtspeak. I hoped I hadn't offended them, but we really needed to get down to business.

I looked over at Marco. He had picked up his laptop and was sitting crosslegged on the bed with it in front of him. I couldn't help but smile at him - he looked so cute sitting there, squinting at the screen and punching keys – so I went over and climbed on the bed next to him and kissed him on the cheek. He flashed me a grin and we both jumped at the loud BEEP that came from the computer in the corner.

We both looked over and a very familiar image came on the screen – Ax!

Melea looked at us with a stalk eye and said to us: -I have managed to contact Aximili.-

-Melea,- Ax said sounding worried, -Why have you contacted me? Is this an emergency?-

I stood up quickly and walked toward the computer screen with Marco right behind me. "Yes," I said in a clear voice. "It is an emergency."

Ax's eyes went wide. –...Rachel?- He said in a shocked voice. –Why are you on the Andalite Homeworld?-

Marco appeared next to me. "We need your help." he said simply.

It occurred to me just then that we couldn't explain our situation with Kyger and Melea there, so I winked at Marco and said: "Yeah, but we can't tell you all the details here. We need to meet with you to speak in private."

-I do not wish to disclose my location over an unsecured connection.- Ax said uncertainly.

"This is about as secure as it can get, Ax-man." Marco said. "We disabled all the cameras and microphones and have been jamming the signal through here since we arrived."

-Alright then.- Ax said, –I am in transit to the planet Leera and will be arriving there in the next two days. I cannot disclose the purpose of my mission at this time, only that it is very important in the war against the yeerks.-

"We understand." I said speaking for Marco and I.

-Do you have a plan yet?- Ax asked.

Marco and I looked at one another, thinking. I bit my lip and looked down, "Um, well..." I said. We hadn't gotten that far. "We're probably going to have access to a ship soon, and we'll probably be contacting you along with an Andalite named Ganlor."

-Ganlor...- Ax said thoughtfully, –I believe I have met him before. He is working with you, I presume?-

"Not exactly." Marco said looking at me and raising an eyebrow. I wished we'd discussed what we were going to say earlier since we obviously couldn't say anything bad about Ganlor in front of Kyger.

"Just don't believe everything we tell you in that conversation, ok?" I said. "Act like you believe everything, and we'll contact you later with the real plans."

-Do you need my contact information?- Ax asked.

"That would be helpful." Marco said.

-OK.- Ax said solemnly. –I am transmitting the contact codes into your computer now.-

"Thanks." I said.

-I shall be expecting your calls.- Ax said. –Is there anything else we need to discuss at this time?-

Marco and I looked at each other, then back at the screen. "I don't think so." Marco said, speaking for both of us.

-Alright then. Goodbye my friends.- Ax said.

"Talk to you later, Ax-man." Marco said.

"Yeah, Bye." I added.

The connection cut out then, leaving the screen a dark gray.

"Melea?" Marco asked turning around to look at her.

-Yes?-

"Thanks."

-You are welcome. And thank you for telling us about humans.- Melea said.

"You're welcome." I said smiling at them and sending a questioning look at Marco. We needed to get them to leave so we could discuss the next steps in the mission.

"So, we need to get some stuff done around here." Marco began.

"Yeah," I added, nodding.

-But I have more questions!- whined Kyger.

"Maybe we can talk to you more later?" I suggested.

-OK, I guess.- Kyger said dejectedly as he and Melea walked toward the door.

-How about a game of driftball?- Melea suggested. –We can go find Belin and Ralnora...-

-Yeah!- exclaimed Kyger trotting out the door. –See you aliens later!- he shouted as he ran toward a nearby field with Melea close behind.

"Good," I whispered, watching them go. "Melea managed to distract him for a while." I looked over at Marco. He gestured me to come into the room, so I followed him. "So..." I questioned, wondering what he was up to.

"So, we need to figure out what to do, right?" He answered.

"Yeah," I said looking at him questioningly, "You've got a plan?"

"Nope." He said, grinning and running a hand through his short dark hair, "Just let me think for a minute." He closed his eyes and I looked at the floor. I couldn't just come up with a plan like that. We needed to talk it out.

"Poker?" I suggested. "Seems like we always come up with the best plans playing cards..."

He gave a quiet chuckle and nodded. "I'll get the chips."

We set up the game without speaking, pushing the desk into the middle of the room and pulling up two chairs on either side of it, then started discussing the case again.

"So, what do we know so far?" Marco asked, glancing at his two cards and rapping his knuckles on the desk to signify he was checking (not placing a bet).

"Well," I said discarding one and flipping up three cards onto the desk. "We're supposedly infested and Ganlor expects us to infest Ax when we somehow get to meet with him. So..."

We went through a number of possible scenarios while playing Texas Hold 'Em poker and finally decided that we would try to meet with Ax on Leera. We assumed Ganlor would figure out where Ax was headed and want us to just go there rather than us trying to meet him in transit. A few hours and about 30 hands of poker later, the viewscreen beeped again. Marco walked over and turned it on. Ganlor appeared on the screen.

"Hello, Visser." Marco said solemnly. I walked up next to him. "Good afternoon, Visser." I said trying to keep any emotion out of my voice.

-I have located a ship for your use. I will await your presence at the docking bay – meet me there at 19:00 hours. I will tell you exactly what the plan will be when you arrive. Bring your suitcases. If you are asked where you are going, tell them that I am taking you on a short tour of our moons as part of your trip. It should not arouse suspicion with anyone.- Ganlor explained all at once. We just stood there listening.

-Do you understand?- Ganlor asked in a fearsome voice.

"Yes Visser." We said together.

-Good. Make sure you are not late. Be there at precisely 19:00 hours.- Ganlor finished and the screen went black.

I looked at Marco and shook my head. "Well, that was about what we expected." I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Marco grinned. "Yup." He looked over at the weird clock on the wall. It had 14 hours on it, rather than 12 like on Earth clocks. The short hand currently pointed between the 3 and 4 and the long hand pointed to the 12. All the clocks on the ship were digital and read the time on Earth in New York, probably for the benefit of the humans on board. "So, do you suppose that 19:00 hours is about 5pm, then?" he asked.

I looked over at the clock. "Yeah, probably." I said. "I guess now all we have to do is wait."

"You know, I never realized what Ax was talking about when he kept sayingour hours and minutes." Marco began. "Hours and minutes are so different here, it's amazing he was even able to figure out how long our minutes and hours were!"

I nodded agreeing and looked at the floor. A lot was riding on this mission. Almost as much as was riding on us when we were kids.

So Marco and I went back to the poker game and discussed how we were going to convince Ganlor we needed to go to Leera alone and what we were going to say to him when we met. It wasn't too hard to decide – we just needed to make sure the cover story sounded believable to a yeerk.

Back on Earth...

-Tobias-

We fed all the animals and then walked up the hill toward Cassie's house. It was a really big house, I noticed now that I was human. The old farmhouse was white, with a covered wooden porch on the back and blue shutters around the windows.

We went inside and Cassie stopped just inside the door to take off her mud-and-poop-covered boots. I looked down and realized the ones I was wearing were pretty gross too. I stepped out of them and onto the hardwood floor near the door, and then looked at Cassie.

She looked at me and almost laughed, "Hang on." She said, "I'll see if I can find you some clothes that might fit a little better. Those are awfully baggy." She ran off down the hallway and I stood there, looking at the pictures on the wall: a wedding picture of Cassie and Jake – they looked so happy in that one, I was glad they had worked out their problems.

I walked down the hallway slowly, stopping to look at each picture. Some were newer, some were older – Cassie graduating from vet school, Jake with a bunch of guys who looked like they were in the military, high school graduation with Cassie, Jake, Marco and Rachel all in caps and gowns. And a magazine cover – framed with a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla and a grizzly bear on the front. "Heroes," the caption read, "5 teenagers save the world." And I had missed it.

It sort of hit me just then, as I continued to look at the fading pictures, all that I had missed. I had missed my childhood, high school, and the years many people spend in college. I still had a life, though, and I knew that I needed to figure out how I wanted to live it. Alone. I remembered. I'm going to be alone. Well, that wasn't new to me. I'd been alone most of my life, until I met Rachel and the rest of the Animorphs. Maybe I could make some new friends if I started working somewhere. And sacrifice my wings? Permanently? I didn't know if I could do that. I didn't know if I had a good enough reason to do that.

I stopped in front of a picture of Cassie, Rachel, and Marco. They were at some party, it looked like, and Rachel was holding up a book in front of her as Cassie and Marco leaned in on either side with big cheesy grins on their faces. Rachel looked really excited, so I moved closer to the picture to get a better look. It looked like the book had a picture of a bird on the front - I wondered what it was?

A moment later, Cassie came back out of a room down the hall holding some clothes in her hands. She walked up to me and looked over my shoulder at the picture. "Oh!" She exclaimed. "I never showed you Rachel's book!"

I was confused, though I'm sure it didn't show up on my face. "Rachel wrote a book?" I turned my head from the picture to look at her.

"Yup!" Cassie said grinning. "A pretty good book, too! Here." She said handing me the clothes, "Go in the bathroom and put these on while I see if I can find the book for you." She grinned at me as she turned around and walked toward the kitchen. I went into the bathroom, as she'd requested, and quickly demorphed and remorphed to make sure I wouldn't run out of time. Then I put on the clothes – jeans and a t-shirt. They fit a lot better than the other ones.

After I changed, I came out and Cassie handed me a book. I looked down at it. The title was Xena and the Hawk. I wonder where that came from? "You can go in the living room and talk to Jake or watch TV or whatever. I'll let you know when dinner is ready." Cassie said, startling me out of my reverie.

"OK." I said feeling almost nervous as I and turned toward the living room where Jake was watching a football game on TV. I sat down on the couch there and looked at Jake.

"So." I said, unsure what to say.

"So." He said, nodding to acknowledge my presence. His eyes were still glued to the TV, though, so I didn't think he wanted to chat. Oh well, I had a book in my lap that Rachel had written. I scanned the cover. "Xena and the Hawk" was printed in scrawling script above the photograph of Rachel with a red-tailed hawk perched on her arm. It was a nice picture, I guess.

I opened up the book, the cover cracking a little as I turned to the first printed page:

Xena and the Hawk
By Rachel Berenson

This book is dedicated to my first and only love, Tobias Fangor.

Well, that was sweet, I guess. But obviously the "only" part had changed quite a bit since it was published.

I would also like to thank Marco Bentle for his friendship and encouragement.
Without him, this story might never have been published.

Huh. I wasn't sure what to think about that. I guess I should have been happy for her that she wasn't alone, but all I felt was betrayal. Like she didn't have the right to be happy or something. That couldn't be right. I wasn't sure what to think, but I didn't want to continue dwelling on it, so I turned the page to the first chapter. "Elfangor" it was called. I began to read the story of how we had met at school, then again later at the arcade and stumbled upon Elfangor's ship crash-landing in the abandoned construction site. It was interesting to see it all from Rachel's perspective.

I got lost in the story until, probably about 15 minutes later, Cassie called Jake and I for dinner. We went into their dining room and sat down to eat. The conversation wasn't really very interesting, but after a while, I mentioned my idea about helping with the animals. They seemed to think it was a good idea, so we agreed that for about 2 hours a day, I would help Cassie in the barn with the animals.

I also mentioned that I really wanted to talk to Ax. Jake said he had equipment for communicating with Andalites as part of his job, so he offered to let me go to work with him the next day and try to contact Ax on the Andalite Homeworld.

We finished up dinner after that and I demorphed and went out to the barn to sleep. The next morning I got up and Cassie gave me a couple more mice. Then I morphed to human, put on the clothes I'd been wearing the day before and met Jake at his BMW to go to work with him.

"So, you got a BMW, eh?" I said, trying to make conversation. "I guess this job must pay well."

"Not really." Jake said glancing down and changing the song on the CD player, "But we got paid really well for doing talk-shows and commercials after the war ended and we haven't really run out of money from that yet. Of course, Cassie gave most of hers to charity and paid for her veterinary degree, but mine is still in the bank, waiting to be spent."

"Oh." I said, not sure what to say to that. "So, do you think we'll be able to contact Ax today?"

"Don't know." He answered. "We'll just have to see."

I wasn't sure what else to say, so I just kept silent the rest of the trip. We got there and Jake walked straight up to what looked like a computer built into the side of a wall, with a bunch of buttons below it.

I guessed it was some sort of video communicator, like the miniature one Ax used to communicate with the Andalite Homeworld during the Yeerk war.

Jake started pushing buttons on it and eventually the face of an Andalite showed up on the screen. I didn't say anything, but Jake did. "Commander Jake Berenson of Earth speaking." He said. "I am trying to contact Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Will you connect us with his scoop?"

I looked at him in surprise. Commander? Wow. Well, hopefully that would get the Andalite's attention.

The Andalite didn't look at all impressed, though. -Why do you need to converse with him?-

"A friend of his, Tobias Fangor, would like to speak with him." Jake responded calmly.

-Does this involve business or is it merely a personal call?- the Andalite sneered.

"It is a personal call." I said, speaking for the first time.

–You do realize, Commander, that War-prince Aximili has many things to do that are far more important than speaking with humans.- he haughtily answered, drawing out the word 'humans' as if it disgusted him.

"I believe that is his decision to make, not yours. Will you put us through to his scoop or do I need to speak with your superior?" Jake said, sounding a bit put off by the Andalite's arrogance.

-I will patch you through.- He said finally, the screen blanking out for a minute.

I looked at Jake. "Are they always that friendly?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, that guy was really rude. Most of the Andalites I've spoken with are a lot more polite." He answered shaking his head disgustedly. The screen flashed again and we both looked back at it. A different Andalite appeared on the screen. It looked like an older female, though, definitely not Ax.

"Um, hello?" I said to the image.

-Greetings.- the Andalite female said. –I don't get many calls from humans, what is the purpose of your call?- Her thoughtspeak was quiet and to-the-point.

"We want to talk to Ax." I said without thinking.

-Who?- she asked, waving her stalk eyes in puzzlement.

"He means Aximili." Jake broke in, flashing me a look that said 'let me do the talking'. So I kept my mouth shut.

-Oh!- she said excitedly. –Aximili! ... But you can't talk to him now! He's just been sent on another mission. He's always doing that – traveling around, doing whatever he can for the military and such. I am so sorry you called at such an inopportune time – he just left this morning!-

"Oh." I said. I was really bummed. I wanted to talk to Ax!

"Well, can we call him on his ship?" Jake asked.

-No, it's top secret.- She answered. –We aren't allowed to tell anyone where he was sent. We aren't even supposed to call him unless it is an emergency.- Then a loud "CLOMP! CLOMP! noise came through the speaker and she glanced behind her with one stalk eye. –I must leave. Someone is here. I am sorry about Aximili.- With that, she turned around and walked toward the other side of the room. I could still see her as she faced a small Andalite who had just come into the room. We couldn't hear their conversation, though, so I assumed she wasn't going to return. I glanced over at Jake who sighed and turned the communicator off.

"Well, I guess that's it, then." he said, "Think you can wait to talk to Ax for another week? We can try again then and maybe he'll be back."

"OK." I replied, feeling very disappointed. "I guess I'll go now."

"Alright." Jake said nodding. "Do you need a ride?"

"No." I said. "I'll fly. I need some time to think anyway." I started to demorph.

He nodded in understanding. "Ok. I'll see you tonight, then?"

-Yeah.- I said, now more hawk than human. –Tonight.- Jake went and opened the door for me, and as I flew out and the door closed behind me, I could see him picking up the clothes I'd shed when I morphed.

It was a beautiful sunny day, albeit a little cold, but I was looking forward to the flight to clear my head, so I found a thermal and rode it up into the clouds, heading back toward Cassie's barn.

I have the next chapter started already because I had to cut this one down a bit – it was really getting too long.
Thanks for reading and if you have time, please tell me what you think!