Chapter Seventeen

The area was vast, a mixture of a storage system for cargo and a docking place for spacecraft. Not all of it was indoors, though the area we were in obviously closed securely – which made sense, considering the weather we had encountered. It almost reminded me of a giant Andalite scoop – it had been dug into the ground for its basic structure, with ridging to encourage wind and other severe weather to not cause too much damage in the area. It had an immense draining system, which led me to believe it probably also had severe rainstorms at other times.

There were lots of spacecrafts in the area – a place set up almost like a hanger kept the bulk of them – but damaged ships, like the Estrella seemed to stay in the storage facilities. I could see it nearby, but no sign of Ax and Marco. Or anyone else that had been working on the ship.

Even with my tiger senses, I couldn't notice anything that would lead me to the idea of a struggle. The biggest problem was simply there not being a noticeable problem. Something wrong, but undetectable.

‹Kat, come with me. Jessie? Stay with Lisa and Zach, but stay low. We don't want a fight but we need to try to keep them safe if there is one.›

Unlike the rest of us, Lisa and Zach wouldn't be able to morph out of an injury. I had to hope that whatever was going on, they were still considered valuable commodities and not expendable casualties.

Approaching the Estrella, I saw that it was open. Kat, following close behind, kept her tail arched, ready for combat.

Still, no one. I jumped up into the Estrella and began looking around. Kat followed me, quickly opening a hidden compartment.

‹Hah, they obviously didn't find everything when they were probably strip-searching the ship.› She quickly belted a handheld Shredder around what was the equivalent of her human waist.

The Estrella wasn't the size of the Blade Ship, but it was definitely larger than the Researcher had been. I was closing in on the scent of Marco and Ax and had noticed that there was quite a bit more to walk through, and the technology was a bit smoother, more appealing to the human aesthetic.

I crossed a corridor, into another room.

Ax and Marco looked back at me, frozen.

"Well, well," said a human voice behind me. I turned around, a snarl in my throat. The image of Caleb, Sam, and the two Andalites greeted me, along with a new human. I assumed he was one of the people affiliated with the Blade Ship. His eyes gleamed, but his skin came off as pale, ashen, and I saw growths on him not entirely different from the few times I had seen nerve endings in videos or certain trainee experiences in the military. Except they weren't the right color, and I knew better than to think I was dealing with an injured human.

‹Let them go. We will leave you alone. We just need to get home.›

A clear lie. The One probably knew perfectly well I had no intention of leaving with it having the power to continue its conquest. The once-Controller laughed.

"Jake, the Yeerk-Killer. I'll do no such thing. The One finds itself too amused by the games brought on by you and your friends. And if you think, after the last round, that it would kill you over anything else, you're wrong. Its intrigue grows the more it heals. And it is sure one day you will be a part of it once more."

I bared my teeth at the man in front of me.

‹Kat, it's a trap. Go, protect the others.›

‹Jake? Shut up. We're not going anywhere without you guys. Couldn't do it if we tried, without the Estrella.›

I heard her quietly approaching behind me, and draw her weapon.

"Soon," the man said, "The Blade Ship will arrive to take the Andalites. Probably for the best – the Kelbrid are also quickly approaching to try and take control of the Andalites that have been documented by the Cryhali zoo. For interrogation. Honestly, we are doing you a great favor."

I continued to look around the room. There had to be something around.

‹Kat, we're looking for something the Estrella normally doesn't have...›

A thought occurred to me. That I'd seen this thing before, once or twice, and more importantly, it was a familiar alien technology that species I'd encountered with had already created.

‹Or maybe it does, and if so that's the way out. Does the Estrella have bio-stasis? I mean, for research of alien life forms? And do you know how to operate it?›

‹Yes.›

I hurried on, excitedly. ‹Everyone in here other than the Controller is in bio-stasis. If he used the ship's system to put them in bio-stasis, and you can shut it off, he doesn't have anything to back him up. It will be eight-on-one, we'd be out of here before anyone had a chance to come in and stop us.›

‹I'm on it!› Kat told me privately. I heard her move away from the room, down the corridor. Loud to my tiger ears, but silent to the Controller. If such a word applied to him anymore.

‹You seem to have mentioned a lot of people taking us. Who is taking us, and where?›

The man laughed manically.

"The One is taking you, of course," he laughed again, which sent chills down my spine. "The two Andalite females and the spacecraft will be left for the Kelbrid, and the humans who are not otherwise involved in this mess will remain here, a token for the Cryhali people and their filthy zoo. They wanted you, you know. You should be grateful. But for the power of The One you would be sitting in your own filth a few hours from now, in a cage for alien tourists, eating native foods your digestive system could not begin to comprehend on this planet.

"Instead, you'll come with us and the other humans will be left with the Cryhalis. No one the wiser."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ax and Marco starting to breathe again. The shock of time suddenly applying to them was taken gracefully. Ax had probably dealt with training regarding the disorientation. Marco didn't need to ask questions to know he needed to morph, and hair immediately began sprouting across his body as he began his own morph.

‹Thank you, Kat.›

I focused again on the Controller.

‹You lied to them.›

He grinned. "Part of the job for The One occasionally lies with deception and feigned cooperation, yes. In any case, would it not be better to come back to The One over living here, Jake, in squalid, deplorable conditions of this zoo that feeds off of displaying sapient beings?"

The conditions of the area had been terrible. And there were many people that had needed to be freed.

‹The situation you're talking about for us is not very different from the situation you have described. We would have no movement, no exercise, and be a simple extension of some bigger thing. But here's the thing: None of us are sticking around for that today.›

His brown eyes, somewhat glazed over, suddenly flickered as he processed my defiance. Suddenly, he looked around.

"Oh -," he began, but had no time before Ax had knocked him out.

‹Sorry, Jake.› Marco grated. ‹We were out before we ever knew he was here with us. The ship was already repaired, though. We were just about to let you guys know before he snuck up on us.›

‹Understandable, and no worries – the spacecraft was the mission, after all. Let's just get everyone else out here and move on.›

Marco headed up to the bridge of the Estrella with the two Andalites, Sam, and Caleb while Ax, Kat and I ran back out to help Jessie, Zach, and Lisa, to escort them to the Estrella and make sure there were no problems. Jessie ran in first, and began to demorph.

‹Trust me, I'll be more useful on the ship with my human body.›

Zach and Lisa jumped in behind her, helped up by an already demorphed Kat. I thought, internally, she might be what Ax called an estreen – someone with a talent for morphing. Ax and I followed behind.

Marco, coming back to the entrance, tossed the Controller out as gently as he could while still managing to treat him mostly like a sack of potatoes.

‹Rock-a-bye Baby.› Marco joked, but also headed back to the bridge, demorphing as quickly as he could while walking.

I began to demorph as well. We needed hands, not claws. Afterward, I ran up the corridor, toward the bridge.

"Kat!"

She turned.

"Does the Estrella have any weapon stations?"

"No," Caleb interrupted before she could answer. "We are getting technological advances from Andalites in developing our spacecrafts, but not weapons technology. At least, not beyond a slight increase in morphing technology. So the ship doesn't have any weapons. But we did bring plenty of handheld Shredders in case we needed to stun or kill during the trip – not much use on the ground, but..."

Marco and Ax stared, dismayed.

I felt about the same way they looked. It wasn't really that we were shocked – those things had all been denied as long as we had been on Earth with a general public knowledge of the interaction going on between Andalites and ourselves – the whole time people as a whole had known Andalites existed.

On the other hand, we were going to be dealing with three potential enemies with weapons – Kelbrid, The One, the Cryhalis. Four, if we included that we would be dealing with Cryhalis in the underground market as well as the ones that were considered to be running this 'legitimate' zoo business.

It just wasn't a good day to hear we had no functional weapons outside of things to be used on the ground.

Reading our expressions, Jaela spoke up. ‹We do not have weapons, but the Electorate ruled that as humans do not have weapons we considered to be adequate or appropriate for a space-faring environment, we have ruled to work with humans on defending tools strictly for defense.›

Lahsailat turned her stalk eyes toward me.

‹The force fields and other equipment for defense in these human spacecraft are more than adequate to deal with most anything I could imagine another species using against us.› Her tone was reassuring, almost friendly even as she remained cordial. ‹So while we have no weapons, we can hold off attacks for a while going on that and other defense mechanisms we have created.›

"Such as?" Marco asked.

‹A good example would be the bio-stasis. The Estrella is capable of putting everything within a few human yards into bio-stasis for three or four minutes. It is a huge expenditure of energy, but a very effective method for getting a head-start off of the ground if dealing with any hostile people. Not to mention the very effective holographic technology.›

"Mass bio-stasis? That's pretty extreme."

Even Ax looked impressed in spite of himself.

‹And the holographic technology?›

‹It generally makes it look like there are many spacecrafts. It is also a large energy expenditure, but not nearly as much as putting an entire area into bio-stasis, of course. It uses a force field – to make the effect seem more real, and to confuse them about targets. In any case, we can get a few extra minutes if we need to.›

"Okay then, let's go."

Jaela and Lahsailat worked the bridge with Kat, Marco, and Ax. Caleb went toward the back with Sam, to work on the computers, to try to prepare for a larger energy backdrop. Within ten minutes we were ready to leave.

"Power on," Kat commanded. "Jaela, see if you can track down the Researcher so that we can find Tobias. Leah will be nearby, and we'll have to work from there. If we're lucky, we can simply download the navigation system from their ship and save a lot of trouble for this one."

Jaela and Lahsailat worked on navigation and steering while Marco under the guidance of Ax began with experimenting with the controls that would manage the bio-stasis, force fields, holographic technology and all other defense. Ax took communications.

"Hey! Get behind something and be ready to work!"

Kat pointed me toward a seat and I looked at it. It was a station for managing Z-Space jumps. Fair enough, it was a good idea to be ready for exactly that, since it was what we were going to do after getting the others.

"Who had been here before?" I asked, curious.

"Daniel. He died on the way over here. He wasn't the only back up technician that died on the way of being transported here, unfortunately."

"I'm sorry."

‹Kat, everything is ready. And Jaela has been able to detect an Andalite spacecraft not far from this place.› Lahsailat turned her stalk eyes toward Kat, waiting for orders.

"Then let's go. First to the Researcher. Then let's get the heck off of this planet."

And we took off, full speed, slowing only turn and correct our direction out of the hangar.