Chapter Sixteen

Ax, Marco, and the others left to go look for the ship and make repairs. None of the others had decent morphs, but Ax and our new Andalite partners had lent the morph-capable members of our group their own DNA. It would mean if we really needed to help defend the people trying to repair the ship that there would be some firepower at the ready.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to get them acclimated to their new bodies, so Kat and I decided everyone would morph and remain prepared until the spacecraft was ready to move. In addition, we had to be ready to have everyone else morph insect or some other easy-to-hide morph if things went wrong.

The plan was pretty simple. Try to maintain the idea that everyone was in the cages, and hope the Cryhalis didn't notice. If they were waiting for the Kelbrid to take the Andalites and the spacecraft for investigation, we could hope they weren't checking on the ship. So two of us would be in Andalite morph at any given moment, trying to prevent the Cryhalis from paying attention. Everyone else would stay huddled together, trying to make it harder to really think about how many people were present.

If anyone bothered to count, it wouldn't take long, but if we were right and they were just checking on the Andalites? It would give us plenty of time.

With luck, the others wouldn't have to spend long at all working on the ship.

‹Prince Jake, can you hear me?›

Marco and Ax had been trying to keep me updated so that I'd know if we were still in thought-speak range or not. I wasn't sure where they were, but it hadn't been far from where everyone else had been caged in. Which made sense – the area for storage and docking probably wasn't far from the area we were in now – it wouldn't have made much logistical sense.

Time was on our side. The Cryhalis of course didn't move slower or live that much longer in spite of the rotation their planet had, but there was a tendency to still break up certain tasks by the hours of the day. So for something to be checked every two or four hours – leaving us with enough water and giving food - that still gave us a chance to have been working on something.

Or just waiting for someone to check on us – four or eight hours in our own time. Which meant, hopefully, we'd be long gone before the next person came in to check.

‹The people aboard the Estrella were correct, it will not take long to make repairs from the ground. We have already found cables and wiring that should work nicely for repairs until we meet with Ondrean again. Since you are not in morph, I assume all is well for check-ups in the holding center. I will update again in an Earth half-hour.›

I nodded to one of the "Andalites" in the cage with me to encourage a response. Normally I would have morphed Marco so I could speak back with them, but if I did that I wouldn't be able to morph for battle until after I had demorphed. It would have been a waste of time, especially if we ended up dealing with Kelbrid. Chances were of course that they would recognize immediately that there were less people. But whether they attributed that to morph-capable people running away or something more sinister would depend on who we were dealing with.

Either way, I figured we'd cut a decent amount of time off of the repairs to the Estrella with six people trying to resolve its issues over trying to make it look like no one had left and maintaining only two or three people working on the ship itself. But I was still waiting for time to tell, and even though the hours on the Cryhali planet were much longer than Earth's hours I felt there was plenty of cause for concern. Especially knowing that the Blade Ship had been involved with trying to take the people from the Estrella earlier.

Fortunately, at least it let us know a valuable thing about the Kelbrid: They were not cohorts with The One as a whole. Whatever was going on, it was not a matter of these two species working together. That alone had probably been the best news we knew of so far.

I had other questions on my mind. I wondered if the Kelbrid were mostly strong at the moment or if they were particularly vulnerable to The One. Were the Kelbrid in contact with the Andalites part of the actual Kelbrid government, or a process being set up by The One which seemed to have a somewhat specific place by the border of the two regions of space. Or whether a bit of both were all tying into the overall concern. If The One had a strong influence, we could have tried talking to the Andalite Electorate and tried to come to a conclusion. If the Kelbrid had as large a problem with outside influence as we'd been led to believe, the emergency at hand wouldn't matter much.

Politically, the Andalite government might see more benefit in letting things run their course in Kelbrid space. Marco and I had considered it lately, but we hadn't really had a chance to bring it up with Ax or anyone else.

For a while, I tried thinking about less important things. I spoke with the people around me about home. Apparently, there had been a lot of chaos following the disappearance of the Animorphs.

"For a while, Cassie had been under indictment," Lisa said, "As an accomplice to treason and possible war crimes relating to the Kelbrid situation. No one had known about the Kelbrid before that, at least, not on Earth. But it couldn't really hold up in the legal system at this point, because we have technology that beats any lie detector. She got into a little trouble for knowing you were going to do something illegal, but since she hadn't done anything herself, she could only get in trouble for not reporting a crime."

"Besides, a lot of good it would have done either government to arrest the Animorphs. Could you have imagined, seriously, what the Andalite and human populations alike would have done?"

Kat rolled her eyes.

"So we got off easy, in your opinion?"

I almost felt like pointing out we had been unofficially sanctioned by the Andalite government for this illegal mission, but I knew better than to say anything incriminating about the Electorate and Andalite military, or insinuate that my own government had probably known some of what had been going on – seeing as they had brought Menderash to me. It didn't even matter. No one else in either world had known what it had been like to be ripped from reality and placed, as kids, into the battlefield.

Getting away from everything? Not appropriate. But I wasn't about to say none of the privileges we got as war heroes was undeserved, either.

"No," Kat looked almost apologetic, "I didn't mean to imply you 'got off easy.' I was just saying the whole thing – the indictment, the fuss – it wouldn't have done any good for either government."

"It didn't matter anyway. They could make all the threats they wanted about what they would do if they caught you again – it sounded more like they were trying to just ease things over with the Kelbrid. But they didn't have any power to do anything once you went over the border."

"The problem was – is – that the Kelbrid will be the ones with jurisdiction over you if they catch you over here."

Lisa gave me a stern look. "If they catch you over here, they have basically legally issued a warrant to question and then kill you. You're basically on their top criminal list."

I laughed. I didn't like the sound – it was cold, uncaring. It wasn't exactly new for me to be on some dangerous group's bad side.

That was more of the problem that had landed me in this situation to begin with.

"But Cassie, they did let her go?"

Kat nodded. "Her political career took a really big hit, though. I didn't get the particular idea she minded that, much."

She wouldn't have minded at all, and I knew that, but it was still good to hear.

None of us were actual Andalites – even those who looked like Andalites at the moment. We had no idea how much time had passed or how much more time we had left. Anyone morphing simply did so frequently to stay safe of the two-hour limit, with Ax occasionally trying to keep tabs on how morphs were or were not going from another segment of the zoo. Occasionally, we would see Cryhalis pass the room, or look inside, but no one had actually come to check on us yet.

We would talk about favorite sports teams, what our places had been in the world during the Yeerk invasion, favorite movies.

"Actually," Kat said, "That's one fo the greatest things about the blends of Andalite and human technology so far. We basically have all the movies, TV shows, and video-games we could ever want. Not to mention some of the best educational software the planet could have ever inspired. I think those things will be a large part of what you might enjoy by the time you get back: For a few years a lot of this stuff was being kept from us to prevent economic disaster. But they were releasing a bit more the past year during an economic downturn, to spark the economy and cut government spending in classrooms."

I stared at her.

"Just wait until you see how awesome the education software is."

"I don't know about that, but all the video games, TV shows and movies?"

Kat grinned.

I had a feeling she and Marco were going to get along pretty well.

For a while, she and Lisa went from there to talking about how some of the education software worked, particularly foreign language software. The things they mentioned were amazing, but in the back of my mind I felt something grinding down on me, gnawing away at the peace of mind I'd had.

Even though I was still thinking in 'Earth hours' as Ax would have called it, something was wrong. The Cryhalis still hadn't been checking on us. I hadn't heard an announcement of the zoo re-opening.

When had Ax last given me an update?

"Hey, would you mind asking Ax what the progress is on the Estrella and her repairs?"

Jessie, who had been mostly quiet except for passing statements, relayed the question in thought-speak while in Andalite morph. He had been avoiding discussion and had seemed to disapprove of being in morph. After waiting a while for a response, he shrugged at me.

Zach hadn't been paying much attention, except for contributing to Kat's statements, but he shifted his stare from the wall to me when Jessie hadn't been able to make contact with them.

"Do you think they're okay?" He whispered, like conversing with each other would cause a problem.

I wasn't sure how to answer that. I was sure that if it was safe to make a response that Ax or someone else from that group would have contacted me. On the other hand, whether they weren't responding because they were facing an immediate issue, or if they were successfully avoiding attention? It was another story.

I thought back to the Blade ship, and the conversations being held between the Kelbrid and other crew involved with The One as well as the Cryhalis. The information I knew relating back to this mission.

"Jessie, demorph. I'm going to have a chat with Ax."

They stared at me as I morphed. I was not morphing an Andalite or keeping any pretense of being any of the captured crew of the Estrella. Stripes covered me, then fur. My teeth grew and my spine elongated, my fingernails became claws. Bones stretched while others became compacted, my lungs grew, my nose turned wet and cold.

In less than two minutes – a skill that could only happen for those few morphers experienced enough – I was a fully grown Siberian tiger. Muscles of liquid steel ready to coil, paws the size of large pans.

I tried talking with Ax or Marco.

‹Ax. Marco. If someone doesn't respond soon, we're going to start busting down doors and looking for you.›

I hoped I wasn't overreacting. I hoped we weren't about to blow our cover because for a short while they had been too focused on something else, or even just slipped outside of the thought-speak range for a few minutes.

But I didn't have much time to decide either way, regardless of whether or not I also had people who were not morph-capable to deal with. And since we were dealing with a situation with three immediate political influences, I decided assuming the worst of the situation was probably best.

‹Everyone? We're going to look for the others and the Estrella. I'll take the lead, Zach and Lisa, you stay in the middle. Everyone else, get into Andalite morph and take up the back.›

In a few minutes, we were ready, with the most vulnerable of us in the center where any of us would notice them missing.

"What are we doing?"

‹We are not doing anything. You are sticking to us like glue and not leaving the middle. We – the morph-capable of us – are going to be working offense, defense, and hopefully just preventing any Cryhalis or Kelbrid walking in on us.›

‹How likely is this exactly to turn into a battle?› Jessie asked nervously. ‹I don't feel like I'm at all familiar enough with an Andalite body.›

I knew how it felt. As long ago as it had been, there was once a time I had been disoriented with my tiger morph, or any of the other morphs I had tried.

‹If you need to, you'll learn fast.›

Jessie and Kat didn't look particularly reassured. Not that they really could express emotions well as Andalites. But Kat gave everyone else a look and they fell behind me, quietly, listening for signs of any other species we might not have otherwise been aware of.

I could smell Marco and Ax. My paws thudded against the ground quietly, with the sound of a few Andalites and humans taking step behind me with a variety of hooves and shoes. The scent was fresh and clear, but it bothered me that there was so little evidence of recent Cryhali activity.

Left. Right. The slope of the hallways started going down, and my body felt a change of atmosphere. Fresher air up in the distance, larger spaces. I couldn't see them myself, but my sharp tiger eyes did perceive a door ahead.

‹Ax? Marco?›

I knew something was wrong for them to not respond again. Someone should be able to talk to me. We were close to the Estrella, I knew it.

We reached the end of the corridor. Jessie stepped forward, her hooves gracefully moving around Lisa and Zach. I looked at them.

‹As soon as we're inside, you need to hide.›

Jessie opened the door, and Kat in her own Andalite morph moved closer to the two of us. As everyone stepped inside, Zach and Jessie moved immediately to the side on the right, to hide near a large amount of storage containers.

We were with the Estrella.