Chapter 3

*Do not be afraid.*

All of us fell back about a foot. It was a distinct voice, but I didn't hear it in my ears. I heard it in my head. I read enough comics to know what telepathy was, but having someone use your frontal lobe as a radio receiver - unannounced, I should add - is the highest degree of startling.

"God, fuck me. Did everyone-?" Marco asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

*This may disturb you. I apologize, but I have little time for explanations. Know that I mean you no harm.*

"Wait, what?" Marco started to ask. "What the hell?"

The alien was shrinking before our eyes. The six legs of the alien shifted, changing distance. The hind legs seemed like they were getting closer to the middle, even as the middle continued to shrink. Then the limbs began to change shape, the hoof-like feet shifting, tapering. There were odd, disconcerting noises as the bones reformed. Like the wet sound of chicken bones being pulled apart. There was a visceral horror to it and Marco turned to throw up. Rachel looked like she wouldn't be far behind.

The newly distorted limbs started sprout odd feathers, more like the spines of a lionfish than the feathers of a bird. The alien's blue fur seemingly melted into its skin as though each individual hair had been made of paraffin wax. The alien's face tapered forward, the mouthless skull stretching into a terribly pointed serrated beak. The hind feet resembled the feet of some ancient bird, but different from any I'd ever seen. The hind legs were feathered too, like those images of microraptor I'd seen on the internet.

It looked like a raptor dinosaur crossed with some deep-sea fish, and then exposed to radiation.

And just as soon as he had become the strange alien bird, the process reversed. Feathery fins slurped back into the flesh, wingtips reverted to hooves.

It looked like something out of a high-rent Cronenberg movie.

*My apologies. I know the morphing process can be very unsettling, but my injuries left me no alternative.*

"You can understand us?"

The alien looked at Marco and nodded. An oddly human expression. *Yes, I can understand you.*

"How? Are you reading our thoughts?"

The alien seemed to smile through his eyes, amused. *My species can communicate telepathically, but we cannot read minds in the way you suggest.*

Marco was about to ask something else, but the alien cut him off. *I am sure you have questions, all of you. And I promise I will try to answer them as I can. But right now, we are in danger and we must flee from here. Will one of you help me?*

Tobias and I both stepped forward.

"What kind of danger are we in?" I asked.

"He's telling us that whoever, whatever, shot him out of the sky is going to come looking to see if they succeeded."

I winced. The idea had occurred to me. I'd seen the damage. I think all of us already knew that the 'meteors shower' we'd seen were the rest of his ship. The streaks of matter burning in the atmosphere, a spaceship that seemed more like an escape pod than an actual ship, the blistered edges to its hull, all of these pointed to something bad happening in the minutes before we'd found him.

The alien slumped forward, his posture like a visible sigh. *He is correct. We have precious little time, and the contents of my ship must not fall into enemy hands. If I must die here, so be it, but my intelligence reports, my mission briefings, not least of which the Escafil device, none can be taken by the Controllers.*

The alien led Tobias and I to his wrecked ship. The interior of the ship was brightly lit, and I can't really describe it because it was just too separated from any frame of reference. Whereas we humans design desks and screens at right angles, favoring boxes, squares, and rectangles, the interior seemed to favor highly organic shapes and curves. There was a sense of overlapping contours in the control consoles, though I didn't see very much in the way of buttons or dials.

I wondered if maybe the alien controlled the ship with his mind, but before I could ask, he handed me a deceptively heavy steel cylinder. Tobias seemed kinda hurt, like he was disappointed that he didn't get to carry the way-too heavy, probably radioactive canister. The alien did hand a few odd devices to Tobias, though, and he grabbed what almost looked like a horse's saddle crossed with a hiking pack and fitted it over his back.

I realized that he was alone, that he was taking whatever he could carry, and that he was stranded on this planet. There was a hologram on the console, small, less than a foot tall, of other aliens like him.

"Your family?" I asked, stupidly.

The alien did not turn - I realized his neck couldn't bend that way - but instead turned one of his stalk eyes toward me. *Yes, my parents and my brother.*

"Can we take this?"

The stalk eye looked both happy and sad at the same time. *The hologram is simply a file within the console. I will take it with us.*

As we stepped out, we saw Marco, Rachel, and Cassie just staring off into space. I turned and saw red lights, bright as fireworks, move silently but steadily across the horizon.

*We must hurry.*

No one said anything, but we ran to the barn as fast as we could. I'm sure the alien was faster on its four legs than we were, but of course he didn't know where we were going and he was carrying extra weight. I wondered about the stuff we'd just salvaged from the alien vessel. Part of me actually was legit worried it was going to give me cancer, but curiosity was still winning the battle over terror. Terror wasn't liking that at all.

It took us less than ten minutes to reach the SUV.

"Should we run?" I asked.

The alien seemed to consider it and I was reasonably sure he'd fit in the SUV. There's a mental image for you: five teenagers and an alien, driving around in an outdated SUV.

Marco shook his head. "It's dark, Jake. We get on the road, with the lights on, that car is going to become a very visible target very quickly. We need to hide."

I nodded, but I took the time to open the door grabbed my phone out the front seat and turned it on. My phone takes a while to boot, so I just slipped it into my pocket and we made our way up to the barn as fast as possible.

The barn was dark, and a barn full of caged, injured animals is not terribly comfortable, not for the animals, and definitely not for five teenagers trying to shelter an alien.

Rachel turned on her phone's flashlight. "Can we get the generator on?" she asked.

I was already moving, but Marco again shook his head. "No lights. Those ships are going to find his ship, and when they find it's empty, the first place they'll look is at the barn half a mile away with the fucking lights on."

"God, Marco, why are you getting so testy? Who the hell put you in charge, anyway?"

"Rachel," I said firmly, before Marco could answer, "please, stop. He's right. I know he's getting pissy, but that's how Marco is when he's stressed. Dude, we're all stressed. Can you try to dial up the chill?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Rachel."

"Me too. Jake, how are you so calm?"

I felt very surprised by that question. I was beyond terrified. I had never been so scared, and I was very aware that my benchmark for most-terrified kept getting moved. We had seen a meteorite, a spaceship, an alien that turned into a mutant raptor bird, and now that we were standing in the barn I replayed the last half hour in my head. When you start trying to figure out how much terror your mind can process, you know you're having a bad night. Maybe it really was that it was too much too fast. I think if I could've processed each event a little more, things would've been different. But by the time I could process the ship, there'd been a bleeding alien. By the time I could process the mutant bird thing, I was carrying a cancer tube. Each new thing kept the last from sinking in. But now we were sitting in the dark, and there weren't any new things to distract me. The curiosity part decided fear could take this round.

"Rachel, I've never been so scared." I looked around everyone in the dim glow of Rachel's phone. "Cassie, are you okay?"

She hadn't said anything since the alien had grabbed her arm.

"I'm… I have no clue, Jake. Do we have time for answers now?"

The alien nodded again. Such a very human thing to do. *Yes, I think that would be the best use of this time.* He paused, like he was taking a breath. *My name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. I am an Andalite. My planet is part of this galaxy approximately eighty-two light-years from here.*

"I'm sorry to interrupt here, but I'm still really freaked out. How did you do that? What was that bird thing?"

The alien almost laughed. His eyes did that smile thing again. *My apologies. I forgot you are unaware of the morphing technology. It is something for which my people are well known across many planets.*

"Morphing?"

*The technology is very complex, but in simplest terms, anything I touch I can then become. The creature I became is called a kafit, a creature from my home planet. It is one of the morphs Andalites acquire as part of our training. It has been a long time since I have had to morph. It is usually reserved for intelligence missions, but it allowed me to heal my injuries.*

"Training, missions, 'enemy hands'? You're military, aren't you? What brought you to Earth?" Marco asked.

*War.*

"What, seriously?" I asked. To that point, I hadn't really been very wary of the alien. He just didn't seem dangerous. He still didn't, but even so, somehow all of us found a little more distance between the Andalite. For all I knew just then, we had been trying to save an alien that meant to kill us. I think our reaction was telling.

*Yes, war. You must understand, I mean you no harm. But I am not the first so-called alien to visit this planet. There are so many others. And they do mean you harm. Your planet is being invaded.*

"I find it hard to believe Earth is involved in an alien war and no one has noticed," Rachel said. "Are the motherships invisible or something?"

*You jest, but you're very close to the truth. Your species has been discovered by the Yeerks. Give me a moment. I can explain this easier.*

The Andalite, Elfangor, opened one of the steel canister things he'd had Tobias carry. It was smaller than the one I had carried, a little larger than a beer can. He did something to the tube and suddenly the barn was gone.

Instead we were standing on an alien planet. The sky was a dull green-grey, and I swear I could smell the electricity in the air, the smell of ozone you pick up right before a bad thunderstorm. The planet was mostly flat, and for the most part, all I could see for miles were dark rocks, sludge pools, and strange grey moss. Instead of trees, there appeared to be giant mushrooms growing in scattered clusters. Off in the distance I could see odd little alien creatures, almost like apes, scampering off.

"Are those Yeerks?" Cassie asked.

*No, those are the Yeerks.* the Andalite said, gesturing to the pool closest to us.

We gathered round and looked into the sludge pool. The liquid wasn't water. It looked like mercury or molten lead, and it smelled toxic. But in the pool, writhing by the hundreds, were small slimy slugs.

They didn't look like much. They didn't seem to have eyes, they were just little globs of slime.

*In their natural state,* Elfangor said, *Yeerks are nearly helpless. They are blind, essentially deaf, and cannot survive long outside of their liquid environment.*

But then the virtual world changed. We were next to one of the strange little ape creatures as it fell into one of the pools. The slugs surged as though the pool had started to boil, and as the alien creature stood up, I could see for the briefest of moments, one of the slugs slithering into the alien's ear canal.

"Holy god…" Rachel said.

The hologram or whatever you want to call it was gone. We were back in the dark barn, lit only by the flashlight of Rachel's phone. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

*The Yeerks can enter through various passages and enter the brain. From there, the creature becomes what we call a Controller, a stolen body slave to the parasitic Yeerk. They have enslaved many races in the galaxy. From the primitive Gedd of their own planet, to the Taxxons, the Hork-Bajir, they have now come to Earth. They have come to enslave your species.*

"You're telling us these alien slugs are crawling into people's brains?" Cassie asked.

*Yes. There are no outward signs that a species has become a Controller. They can inhabit most higher forms of life and their operation on Earth is larger than our Andalite military had known.*

"So you're saying anyone we know, anyone we meet, could have an alien slug in their brain and we'd have no way of knowing?" Tobias asked.

*Precisely. It is what makes them so difficult to fight.*

"How did you know we weren't Yeerks?" Marco asked.

*Because you did not kill me.* He said it as though it should have been obvious. I could feel his sense of...finality? It was a sad kind of certainty.

"Um...yeah," I said. "So what happens now? I mean are there other ships that can come get you?"

*I- I do not know. The rest of the Andalite forces were under fire when my ship was hit. I do not know if there are any survivors. For all I know, I am the last Andalite on Earth.*

"Can you contact anyone?" I asked. Yeah, like he was going to whip out a cell phone.

*I salvaged parts from the escape pod. It would take me time to assemble a communications relay, but yes, I will call for help when I can do so. That, however, is not my most pressing concern.*

I knew what he meant. He had to live through the night first. "Cassie, is he good to stay here for now?"

She nodded. "My mom will be here in the morning, though. We can't have her find you…"

*I understand.*

"Guys, what are we doing here?" Marco asked.

"Marco, I thought you were the smart one," Rachel said. "We're hiding an alien in Cassie's barn. Try to keep up."

I stared at my cousin, shock on my face. We all actually laughed, even Marco. It wasn't a riotous bout of laughter; we were all too scared and freaked for that. But it wasn't forced or mirthless, either.

"Marco, I know you're freaked. We're all freaked, right guys?" We all mumbled in assent before she continued. "It's not that we don't know this is a clusterfuck. I know it is. But what else do you suppose we do?"

"I- I got nothing." Marco was torn between his rationality and his morality. The smart thing was to run, and leave the alien to its own devices. But he knew the right thing to do was help, and so he did. But doing the right thing over the smart thing seemed to piss him off something fierce.

"Tobias," I said, my throat already tightening with the anticipation of how he'd answer me, "can you see the red lights from there?"

He was closest to the window. He seemed to like windows, I noticed. Even at the movies, he liked hanging out by the glass doors. I'd alway thought it was so he could look like he was waiting on someone rather than that he had nowhere to go, but now I wondered if maybe Tobias went through life trying to stay close to the light.

He nodded. "They're almost to his ship."

We all gathered to the barn window as much as we could. I'd accidentally kicked a cage with a wounded deer and Cassie punched me full in the shoulder. Like I'd done it on purpose.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry, it's dark."

"Hey, why are the lights still out?" Rachel asked?

*When my ship gave out, the engines detonated an electromagnetic pulse. It was not intentional.*

"Yeah, but why is the power still out? Shouldn't it have come back on by now?"

*I suspect the human-Controllers are actively maintaining the power outage. The cover of darkness likely aids their attempts to locate my ship.*

That was… very unsettling. I wondered how far the alien conspiracy actually reached.

My friends all rushed to the window on the further side of the barn. It was the only window that offered any decent view of the crash site, but it wasn't big enough for five. It was barely big enough for four.

The alien, Elfangor, stood still. With the window crowded, and me not wanting to try to navigate the animal cages in the dark, I stayed with him while the others went to watch his ship and the approaching red lights.

"What do we need to do?"

*Your friend is wise. We are better to hide than to run.*

"Yeah, but when they find you missing, they're going to look for you."

*Waiting is often deceptively difficult. You are afraid, and your natural instinct is to run. You know in your mind that is a poor decision, but the instinct remains, and it gnaws at your resolve.*

I nodded.

*You are very brave.*

"I'm terrified."

*Bravery is not an absence of fear. The absence of fear is recklessness. Fear is cautious, it means to keep you safe. It is wise to be frightened. But fear can be irrational. Bravery is knowing the fear, but not allowing it to rule your decisions. Even afraid, you listen to your friends.*

"Yeah, Marco's smart."

*Yes. And the female,* he said, gesturing to Cassie, *she shows compassion despite the fear.*

"Yeah, that's Cassie. She's like that."

*It is an admirable trait.*

It felt weird. I think I could feel what he felt. Whatever allowed him to communicate telepathically I think also broadcast - to some extent - his emotions. I really think he was actively trying to keep us calm, keep us from freaking out more than we were. But when he looked at Cassie, I felt something sad. Like a distant despair, a sense of longing. I realized Cassie must have reminded him of someone he knew, someone he missed. Someone he may never see again.

I was about to say something, to say sorry maybe, but he held up a many-fingered hand. *They are here.*

I used the flashlight on my phone - there was still no network signal - to make it to the window without bumping another cage. Tobias moved a little to let me see and I watched as the red lights descended over the small creek valley toward Elfangor's wrecked ship. These ships seemed like giant cockroaches with large bent segmented shells and serrated antennae. They were about twice the size of the Andalite's escape pod. These ships looked more… spaceshipish? I don't know if there's a word for it, but they looked more like how I'd have imagined a space ship looked. At any rate, they seemed much more adept at flying than Elfangor's busted escape pod.

"What are those? Bug Fighters?"

*That would be an accurate name for them.*

The ships landed, silently. We waited. We were too far to hear anything, but none of us dared to look away from the window. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash, and I felt a vibration in my toes. "Shit, what was that?"

*The Yeerk ships have destroyed my escape pod.*

"How can they do that?" Cassie asked.

*Dracon beams. The Yeerks use an energy weapon similar to the ones used by Andalites. Only a few trace molecules will remain of my ship.*

The red lights of the Bug Fighters rose into the air once more, and began flying in opposite directions. They were in an obvious search pattern, but it didn't look like they were looking very hard. The lights receded into the distance, and I couldn't tell if they were gone or not, only that we could no longer see them from the window.

"Wow, they gave up quickly," Marco said.

"Yeah, I thought for sure they would check out the barn."

*For a human fugitive, that may be a logical course. But Yeerks are aware of Andalite morphing technology. They know I could be in morph, so there is almost no point in looking for Andalite survivors.*

I looked at my phone. It was nearly three in the morning.

"Guys, I know this is going to seem small by comparison, but it is really getting late, and we can't stay in Cassie's barn all night. We need a plan."

Cassie nodded. "There's room in the hay loft, assuming you can use a ladder."

*I can fly, if the situation calls for it.*

"Yeah, right, sorry."

"I'll stay with him." I looked at Tobias, maybe a little surprised. He must've read my expression because he went on. "No one will care if I stay here all night. I was going to crash at your place anyway, and Cassie has to be in her room before her mom wakes up in the morning. This will work."

*I would not mind the company.*

"That means you need to take me and Marco home."

"Mom won't care if I bring both of you home. You're my cousin, and Marco is over often enough. If she asks, we'll just tell her we got stuck with the blackout at Cassie's and with no streetlights or traffic lights, she wouldn't want me driving more than necessary anyway. That's all true enough."

Everyone seemed to agree with the plan. I got Tobias's backpack from my SUV as Rachel and Marco got back into their seats. I went back to the barn and handed Tobias his bag. I helped Cassie start the generator. Our cover was that we had helped Cassie with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center during the blackout, and she said the generator would run at least three or four hours and that her mom would turn it off in the morning. We did check on the animals, though none of them were really disturbed by the two-hour blackout. Some of the animals seemed pretty indifferent to the lights, but Cassie said some of them needed to stay warm. May can be brisk off the coast. It dawned on me that none of the animals had seemed particularly bothered by the scent of Andalite in the barn. I guess there was nothing about the smell of an alien they'd associate with danger. We said goodnight to Tobias and left a note for her mom and she locked up the WRC.

I walked Cassie up to her front porch. It wasn't a long walk, but I was beyond tired by that point. I'd been up for twenty-one hours, I was mentally and emotionally taxed, and I was wearing restaurant shoes. My feet were killing me. But I walked her up to the porch all the same.

She leaned her head on my shoulder as we walked. She was at least as worn as I was, if not more so. I didn't mind. The warmth on my shoulder, the smell of her hair, it seemed much more important now. All my idle fears just seemed so trivial.

"You wanna go out sometime?"

She hit me. Her fist caught the meat of my shoulder in a jab I never saw coming. "Are you kidding me, Jake? You're going to ask that now?"

"I've wanted to ask you since April," I said. "I was going to ask you the other day, but I couldn't find the words."

"So you just asked if I wanted your employee tickets?" Her tone told me she already knew all that. Damn you, Rachel. "So why now?"

"Bravery is not the absence of fear."

And then she kissed me.

I remember almost every detail of that night. I remember the way the moonlight seemed brighter in the blackout, I will remember the smell of Andalite blood for the rest of my life, the billowing cobwebs in the rafters of the barn, and the taste of my first kiss with Cassie.

And I remember Marco flashing the headlights of the SUV, in a perfectly timed action to ruin the moment.