CHAPTER 10 (Memory 1)
"Hold!"
They obeyed, freezing in place and looking for the source of alarm. I stood before the disorganised ranks holding out an oustretched arm, observing the two empty corridors that bent away in two direction. Silence befelled the army I led.
Jara Hamee, my father, padded to my side. "Where we go?"
I did not know. The location we had to reach had never been briefed during the plan, nor had the limit of time. It was vital that we reached the engineering desk to secure the area and those within. This was life or death.
None from the compressed crowd of Hork-Bajir could find a word of guidance. Not even them, former hosts aboard this ship, had memory of the decks.
My response was simple. "I do not know."
The message was not well-received by anyone. Confidence was low enough right now, and not knowing where to go was definitely not beneficial.
We were somewhere aboard the Yeerk Pool Ship, wandering aimlessly though empty corridors and rooms, acting as a platoon of patrolling Hork-Bajir-controllers whenever we were spotted. A lot of the time it worked. Other times it did not. We locked the unconsious controllers who had spotted us away in any spare room or locker we could find.
Storming down each and every corridor was getting us nowhere, and a different approach was needed.
All we needed was the fork in the corridor. The majority stood hidden away around a corner and waited. I and my father stood either side of the main route, holding a couple of weapons we had stolen, acting as guards. A volunteer ran off in the opposite direction along the corridor.
The plan was simple. The volunteer would find a controller, then bring them here for capturing and questioning.
"Remember, father: when the yeerk walks past, grab."
"Jara grab!" He exclaimed. I shushed him.
As time went by we began to get worried. There grew a feeling of responsibility to go in search of our comrade who had been gone for quite some time, but as the thought began to cross our minds, we heard the thumping of footsteps moving towards us.
We stood at firm attention. Statues leant against the walls.
Our companion was first to pass, giving us little to no notice. After him came the victim, sporting a light blue band over his right shoulder.
Timing was vital, for he had a gun pointed to the back of the volunteer. Fortunately, father knew that this needed perfection, and he provided it.
His arms were lightning fast, wrapping tightly around the chest and upper neck of the controller and pulling his body backwards. I had to be just as quick, and I slammed my tail against the weapon he clutched in his claw. He fired, but the shot was disturbed. The volunteer yelped out loud, and stared down to see a finger missing.
We were lucky. He ran off back to the others.
Meanwhile, my father had his bladed arm pressed against the naked throat of the controller. He snarled and kicked his legs, but it was just a show.
I grabbed the loose weapon that sat by my feet, and held it to his forehead. "I would like to know where the Engineering Deck is."
A weak attempt to kick the weapon from my hand came close to throwing me off. I stepped back, still holding the gun to his face, and stomped firmly on his left leg. The crack echoed, unending through the empty corridor.
"Tell me, or I will rip you from your skull." I threatened.
Not a word uttered from his snout, bringing on the breaking of his second leg. Blood began to seep onto the metal flooring.
He screamed in desperate agony, but I coiled my claw around his snout and held it shut. We did not need the attention of more controllers responding to distant shouting.
The part of me riddled with guilt was hidden away within, as I broke the first leg for a second time, further down the shin. I grew tired of the yeerks refusal to give answers. "Tell me where I can find the Engineering Deck."
He stared ferociously up at me and spoke muffled words beneath my hand. "Never."
One finger danced daringly over the trigger. His yeerk patriotism was weakening, as his anger slowly turned to fear on his snarling face.
"Last chance."
A nod. He was going to play along. I released his snout, but left the gun trailed to his face.
"The Engineering Deck... It's..." He whispered to his self and closed his trembling eyes. Finally, the answer came to him. "Down two levels. Front end of the ship."
"Thank you." With that, I raised a fist and pounded him hard in the face.
My father said nothing and hoisted up the unconcious body. We tore up a floor plate and gently dropped him in, before securing the plate again. He would be able to smash his way out once he could figure out where he was, but that would take some time. We did our best to make sure to keep any controllers we found alive, but restrained.
So now we knew where to go, and we continued our way through the winding tunnels. Down towards Engineering.
My father was showing an instinctual vow of protection over me, insistant on walking before me in case of any ambush attack. "Toby stay back." He would say, eyes contantly turning back to me as if he thought I would suddenly disappear into thin air.
It turned out that I was the only child within our bundled group, here to receive orders from our allies in other areas of the ship and organise our tactics to sieze Engineering. All other children and their mothers, with those too weak or wounded to fight were safe down on Earth, gratefully protected by a military segment. My mother was one of those left behind to care for my younger sibling, born not long ago. They knew that a number of us would not be coming back. Maybe none of us.
The thought drained into the back of my mind as we almost collapsed down to the next floor. After eventually finding our way down, and knocking down several human and hork-bajir controllers in the process, we had to find a way down to the next floor. The layout of this Pool Ship was fast becoming frustrating.
My hopes were on our allies, who were infiltrating the ship elsewhere. Ocassional orders were sent to me from Jake in thought-speech, which would inform me on the situation on his end. I was thankful that I could not respond back to him, for we were getting nowhere, and were falling behind schedule.
Despite short-falls and the frequent dead-ends, we made it down to the next floor, and sure enough, we were being directed towards the front end of the ship and engineering. Small orange-brown arrows illuminated on protrusions that stuck out from the ceiling after a set number of yards, and were bound to lead to engineering.
The area was also busy, bustling with controllers itching for something more exciting to do. They were not really working at all. Nor did they seem aware of the situation Jake was describing to me over thought-speak. If anything, I would say that they did not even care.
This was fortunate for us because we were able to sway by unnoticed. They barely even looked up at us, thinking us as just another group of Hork-Bajir-controllers making our way down to engineering to carry out strenuous daily chores. The lack of reaction to the ships infiltration by the controllers was both strange and quite a relief.
Planning was vital to this part of the mission. We, a collection of nervous Hork-Bajir armed with but four small weapons and a worryingly empty plan, were to take control of one of the busiest parts of the ship. An estimate told us that engineering would be guarded by more than a hundred of the Vissers blue-bands if any situation on the ship were to break out, no matter how minor. The Visser was on high alert due to experiences over the last few months, which was bad news for us.
Without blue bands over our shoulders, we looked out of place. Several more cautious controllers were giving us suspicious glares, and whispered in each others ears. My tail was twitching awkwardly with nerves, and it seemed like the further we pierced through the engineering deck, the more attention we were receiving.
All we needed was somewhere empty to collect ourselves before we got to the serious business. The others needed to know their roles, or the mission would be failed before we even started. Around us were many doors going off in other directions, but they were all crawling with blue-bands, holding big, nasty looking weapons. Our options were becoming limited.
But luck was on our side. We came to a much quieter section on the outskirts of what was the main engineering station, where only a few Hork-Bajir-controllers patrolled, paying little attention to anything other tha self-grooming. There was a doorway hidden in a corner by stacks upon stacks of cleaning equipment. This was an unattrative mess of mops, brushes and boxes that would have most likely been bought at a human store, identifiable from the blatant human design, which was ugly even in the best cases. The auto-door was peeping open, held from shutting by a broom that had fallen over the opening, just enough to fit my claws in and pull it open.
It turned out though that I would not need to, for a pale-skinned hand reached around the edge and pushed it back before I could get close.
From the door stepped a human in dirty old clothing, holding a vacuum cleaner. He ignored us at first, literally throwing the heavy object into the pile of horribly scented cleaning equipment. He took a lazy look at his watch, then turned to us.
"What do you want?"
We all looked at each other. No... they all looked at me.
"We need to use this room." I told him, putting on my best stressed-yeerk impression.
"Janitors only." He chewed loudly on gum, leaning on the broom stick he had picked from the the doorway.
I returned to the failsafe that I had come to use on a regular basis, giving him my sternest glare. "Visser's orders. Let us in, or go and argue it with him."
How strange I found it when he did not even flinch. Instead, he sighed in annoyance, and spat his gum with pinpoint accuracy into an old black bucket. "What do a buncha smelly space lizards wanna do in a janitors closet?"
For a moment, I had absolutely no way of responding. He seemed unphased by the threat, and he was quite a large human. How much of this was actually muscle, I did not know.
"If you do not let us in, we will force our way in."
"Do I care?"
"I... You..."
"Go ahead. I don't care one bit. It's only where I eat and sleep."
The sarcasm I sensed made it seem like this was a regularity for this scruffy human male. I gave the order to the others to enter, and they did, moving single-file through the narrow door, as the janitor put another piece of gum in his mouth, uninterested.
Before I walked into the small room, I spoke to him. "We wish to be alone. Do not come in after us."
"I go where I want." He frowned at me and snuffled loudly. "And you ain't foolin me. I know why you're here."
My legs shuffled uneasily. "We are here under Visser's orders." I reinstated.
"You ain't here under Visser's orders." He smirked. "You're those free ones that the Visser's been so sore about, and he'd be so pleased if he found you..."
It was shocking to see that the only controller who had seen us as intruders was the janitor, and it even disturbed me slightly. Nevertheless, he had to be taken care of, and I showed him a ready fist.
Still not even the lightest twitch from the irresponsive human. "Even if I do tell him, nothin'll change. I'll just carry on cleanin' up these damn floors all day every day."
This was by far the strangest situation that I had ever been involved in. What should I have done?
"Why should I care if we lose the ship? Means I won't have to be cleanin' nothin' no more. No doubt it's better than this. I don't even get paid, so why do I have to go out my own way to be yelled at by that useless horse? I'd be better off if we lost this here ship."
His inceasant blabbering was holding off my fist. I even began to lower it, as his moaning gave me the feeling that he did not intend to tell anyone about our presense.
I stopped him before he could barrage me with yet more complaints. "If you mean to say that you will stay silent on the matter, than I do not need to incapacitate you, but you must come with us." I pointed to the room, and with a bland sidewards glance he waddled in obediently. I assumed it was obedience...
His presense drew all attention from my friends, who were sat around and having a rest. The door closed behind us, and with my tail I locked it firmly, whilst my eyes kept watch on the janitor. He walked slowly to the other end of the room.
He stopped by a pile of white boxes that were stacked neatly against the wall, and he signalled to me. I trotted over to him and past the others, who were huddling up together to plan.
Peering through the boxes, I saw what the janitor was drawing my attention to. A Blue-band was slumped in a small wooden seat, hidden away from sight, his head back against the wall. Snoring was heard.
"Lazy." Commented the janitor. "Why is it my room that has become the hideout? They think 'that good ol' janitor'll will hide us while we sit 'n' do nothin'. I have to work all day an' all night, scrubbing up dirt, mopping up-"
"Please be quiet."
"Oh sure, shut me up. Everybody else complains to me, but they never shut up..."
The blue-band was fast asleep. Two little bits of tissue oscillated amusingly in his nostrils as he breathed, obviously the janitor having his fun. It was a shame that we would have to disturb the controllers peaceful sleep.
Although it was against my morals to attack someone while they slept, I had no choice in such a predicament. Stepping silently up to the blue-band was difficult on the metal floor, but the tapping of my claws failed to wake him. As I reached an appropriate distance, I knocked him into a further state of unconciousness.
Grabbing him roughly by the arms, I dragged his limp body into the populated area of the room. The others crowded around cautiously and gazed at me as if I knew what needed to be done.
I threw away the blue band from his shoulder and pondered to myself. There appeared to be no place in this room to lock him securely, nor could we throw him out the door. It all left one risky solution.
Carefully I placed my hands on either side of his head and pulled it upwards. I knelt down by him and placed my ear by his own, in hope that the yeerk inside would be fooled into thinking he was being handed another host. Without his hosts eyes, he was blind to the world around him, and the scent of a new ear could possibly tempt him out.
Silence fell around me. The others looking bewildered, and my father looked like he had been shot as I felt something slimy wriggle against my ear. Pulling slightly away from the controllers head, I forced the yeerk to reach and stretch that little bit further.
It locked itself to the edge of my ear. Without restraint I flung a wild grab at the long yeerk slug that was connecting our ears, and swiped it away before it could flatten and penetrate fully into my head. The yeerk landed with a splat metres behind us, and writhed pathetically in the sight of all in the room.
In the ecstacy of success I crawled over and grabbed the frightened slug. It struggled and paniced within my firm grasp, and I knew that within the complex yeerk mind he begged and pleaded for mercy. Perhaps there was a way to spare this yeerks life, and if it were that easy I would have done, but in this case, a sudden demise seemed kindest.
I crushed the yeerk underfoot, yet the awkward silence within the room was not lifted. Every soul within was frozen in place as reality took centre-stage.
That is, every soul but for the janitor. "Now why did you go and do that? I just done cleaned this floor!"
Alert was high as we sat huddled in the small janitors room. Most of us were sat against the walls, preparing ourselves for what was to come, and some of us – me included - were hunched over in the middle, formulating some sort of plan.
The recently liberated Hork-Bajir was in a recovery period, slowly coming to the realisation that we had freed him, only then to be told that he may very well die in battle. The janitor was searching under an unkept bed for something. Between constant complaining of our intrusion, he had told us that his yeerk name was Hrasun-204. It was near impossible to keep him quiet.
Much to my surprise, my father was bringing up the majority of the battle plans. I got the impression that he was trying to impress me, but although he had the determination and the drive, his ideas were not going to get us far.
"All go to engineering." He would say. "Take it. We win!"
"It will not be that simple, father." I told him. "I wish it was."
"Lots of yeerks. We small." Another helpfully informed us.
"Yes." I replied glumly. "But if we can fight them in narrow areas we may be able to hold them off."
We were interrupted by Hrasun as his forced his way rudely between two Hork-Bajir, his needlessly negative attitude derailing the tense atmosphere. "Out of my way!"
Our conversation stopped and attention was turned to him. "What is it, Hrasun?" I asked.
In his hand he revealed a pad full of paper. I took it and skimmed through at what showed to be map of the entire deck. My eyes went wide and I stared at him, surprised.
He shrugged and leant on his broom. "Anything to get outta this damn job. Even if it means helpin' a buncha smelly lizards."
I smiled. "Thank you. I will make sure that you will not have to continue with your job."
For the first time, he smiled and nodded in appreciation. "You ain't bad."
So we got to work, flicking through the pages of crudely drawn planes that connected each room and corridor with limited but sufficient detail. I was able to piece together the many pages and layed it out on the cramped floor.
The deck was larger than I thought, branched off into different areas by long maze corridors. The Engineering control room area was connected to the rest of the deck by one single large straight. This was where we needed to go.
Our plan was simple. We would enter the corridor and lock ourselves in. Attention would soon be picked up by yeerks on either side, and they would break through the doors. The doors on either side were narrow, and few could get through at a time, so we would have advantage of numbers.
Once the bulk of the engineering decks had been dealt with, we would carry on through to the main engineering sect and work our way to the control room at the far side. If we were to capture this, we would have control and the ship would be ours.
Unfortunately, the area was heavily guarded by blue-bands, and sheer numbers may make it an almost impossible task. Many on both sides would be wounded or killed.
My father pointed at two rooms that were diverted to the sides of the main control room, with corridors moving further back towards the sect entrance. "Come on both sides." He said.
He was right. Even after breaching the area and weaving through the maze to the control room, yeerks would no doubt attempt to trap us on either side. That was, unless we split into all three directions, which would ultimately mean that would could strike from all sides in the control room aswell.
Of course, explaining all of this to the others was a complicated process. They looked at me blankly and I would repeat it over and over again until some of them understood. Not surprisingly, the newly liberated Hork-Bajir was more clued up than most, and became a sort of translator for the rest.
My father, on the other hand, discussed the plan with me, pointing out little flaws that I had missed and would tell me whenever I appeared reckless. He knew a suicide mission when he saw one.
"Jara go this way." He said, pointing to the left side of the path as it split in three.
"Then I shall go this way." I added, indicating the central path, headed straight down a shorter, yet busier route to the control room. "We need someone to the lead the rest down the other route." After brief discussion, we agreed that the newly freed Hork-Bajir would be best for the job, and he was happy to accept the leadership.
The three of us sat around the map. We needed to keep communication between the split corridors that conjoined again at the control room, and we concluded that Nuwah, the ex-blue-band, would send one of his troops up into a vent that sat above the corridor where he lead his group. The troop would have access to the vent system that moved above the entire deck. A series of knocking would be used to transfer messages, for as long as the messenger went unnoticed. The Hork-Bajir in the vent would position theirself above each corridor and knock: Once meant 'all clear', twice meant 'reinforcements needed', and three times meant that an entire group had been wiped out on one side.
The latter would also indicate our loss. If one side was unblocked, then we would end up surrounded on both sides.
If all went according to plan, and communication was successful, our timing would mean that we would surround the control room and allow no escape to those inside. This, again, would work better if we were to sustain our numbers.
Eventually, we had a completed plan. We all agreed and began to deliver it to the others, who were assembled against the far wall. They were split into three equal sized groups, each armed with but a single dracon beam. A messenger was picked from Nuwah's group, and the codes were thoroughly explained to him. Whether he could remember was only to be hoped.
We were ready for battle.
Using Hrasun's localised security cameras, we waited for our route to quieten and the majority of controllers to clear. Hrasun continued to express his dissatisfaction, and was impatiently waiting for us to leave. He complained of the smell, and how all we would accomplish would be giving him another week of hard labour.
I did not care about what he said anymore. It was just a noise that I was silently wishing would leave me alone.
Leaving him to watch over the hallways, I jogged over to the bundle of Hork-Bajir anxiously waiting for the signal to move out. Catching their attention was a challenge, being the shortest and youngest. I had to ask my father to help me.
He grabbed a large box, and dropped it on the floor before the crowd, and yelped for the crowds focus. Standing on the wooden crate, I rose slightly over the rest, and heads quickly turned with interest towards me. I inhaled heavily and breezed over each pair of eyes. I started to speak to them.
"For years our people have fought the yeerks. We have lived under them as their slaves, and even as we gained our freedom we have lived in fear of their return. Each one of you has had a yeerk crawl into your head, take you and control you, and each one of you was powerless against them. I may not have been infested myself, but I understand how you felt, and I know how much you wanted break free. The fear has not yet left, and you all have been forced to hide away in silence on a planet that is not your own." Everything was silent, listening.
"But today is the day when we fear no more! Today is the day when we end this nightmare! After this day, we will no longer be living in war, nor will we suffer or hide away. Within these next few hours, we will be free, dead or alive!"
A buzz waved through the crowd, the atmosphere suddenly changing.
"Some of you will die today, and some will be wounded, but either you die for our people today, or you live the life of a slave, and I know that every Hork-Bajir alive would rather end their own life then spend a single moment trapped under yeerk control again. You die here today, but you die as heroes!"
They roared out, brimming with a new confidence and raised their fists with power into the air. I grinned and joined them. "The memory of those lost here today will never die, and when our children live on a free world of their own, the story of this day will be retold with pride!"
We were fired, but the sense of pride would provide little difference to the outcome of a difficult battle.
"Now let us take this ship!"