Chapter 26

As Cassie and I approached the barn, I could see that the fun had already started.

As with any high-stress situation, my friends were already at each other. It's funny, I guess. When stuff gets bad and tense, everybody thinks that they know best. Marco gets pushy, Rachel gets pushy. Jake's learned to just kind of wait for them to get tired of arguing and to look to him to be the mediator – when that happens and he takes control, that's when we get things decided.

As I buzzed the barn's loft opening to shoot to the best perch in the house, I came into hearing range. It was Marco who was talking, as usual.

"I don't know what the Chee have planned, and it really doesn't matter. They're not letting us in on it, anyway. I know Erek said we need a presence at each spot, but splitting up like that is suicide. Especially when we're not even going to stand a chance of winning!"

"Erek helped us out with the serial killer thing. You don't think he's going to hang us out to dry on this, do you?" Rachel demanded. "I mean, this is his planet, too. He's going to do whatever it takes to save it."

"Yeah – save it. Earth. Not us. Now, if we were dog groomers or the dog whisperer, maybe he'd care. Maybe he'd save us then. But who are we to him? Just a row of pawns to fight their fight for them."

(It's not their fight,) I said quietly. I was slowly getting my head into the game – I had to. (The Chee are not at risk of losing their species, or what's left of it. We are. They're only trying to help us – I can't believe you'd even question that after what we've done together.)

Marco is shameless when he's trying to make his point, so I guess what he said shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. He looked up at me shrewdly. "I thought you were going to be more anti-human than ever, based on the way you hauled butt out of there earlier. I mean, that guy made you run away like a scared chicken. You sure -"

Whatever he had been about to say was lost as Rachel balled her fist and swung on him. She busted him in the eye, and he fell down to one knee, holding his hands to it. He was looking up at her in shock – none of us had actually ever hit another member.

"That's enough!" Jake practically roared. "We do not have time for this crap!" He lowered his voice and started to pace. "Any minute now, Erek is going to walk through those barn doors and tell us that the Yeerks are making their move. When that happens, we are going to have to go, plan or no plan. Personally, I prefer a plan." He looked to where his best friend was still on his knees in the hay, clutching his eye. "First, apologize to Tobias. That was way out of line, I don't care how stressed out you are." Jake's tone didn't leave any room to argue with him.

Marco's mouth worked up and down a couple of times before anything came out. He stood up, glared at Rachel, and then looked up at me. "Sorry," he said, and he actually did sound a little regretful. He seemed like he was about to say more, but then he shut up and looked at the ground.

(Not a big deal,) I said, trying to sound as mild as I could. The sting of the comment was already fading. With Marco, either you learned to let him roll off of you like water, or you were going to get your feelings hurt an awful lot.

Jake nodded, then turned to Rachel. "Apologize to Marco. We don't punch each other. We've got enough on our plate fighting the Yeerks."

She stared at him in open shock. "Apologize? After what he said? He's lucky I didn't -"

"Apologize," Jake demanded again flatly. "We have to move forward, and we have to do it right now."

(Just do it, Rachel. He's right. Marco's a jerk, but he didn't deserve a haymaker in the eye. Hell of a right hook, by the way.) The beginnings of a smile twitched the corner of her mouth as I joked with her in private thought-speech. (Just do it so we can get to work. I'm fine, I promise.)

Marco stood up and took his hand away from his eye, shoving it in his pocket. It was already starting to swell. He looked a little disgruntled, but he said, "Don't worry about it. She's not sorry, and I guess I don't blame her. What are we going to do about this diamond robbery? We have to focus on that."

I admired that out of Marco. He saw the situation for what it was, and even though his eye was probably throbbing and blurry, he'd realized that he deserved it and wanted to get down to business, despite it. I guess Cassie thought so, too, because she smiled broadly and threw her arm around him.

"You're a good man," she told him. "And at least now we know you don't need to be in gorilla morph to tough out a punch." Despite himself, he grinned back at her. Rachel looked rueful for the first time as she realized she'd overreacted, and she actually did apologize. Marco smiled at her, she smiled back, and all was forgiven.

"Five locations. Six warriors. War-rhea-ers." Ax was in human morph, because we didn't know exactly when Cassie's parents would be getting home. "We will be able to have two people –pee-pee-pee-pull – at one site. Which site? Which pee-pool?" I noticed he had something brown smeared on his front teeth, and decided that I didn't want to know.

"That's the only part I've got figured out," Jake said. "Erek requested that Marco be at the diamond exchange. He didn't say why, and I didn't ask. But it seemed important to him. Since that's going to be the worst fighting, I thought I'd send the backup with him." He looked at Marco. "I'm not exactly excited about more or less ordering you to the most dangerous place -"

"Yeah, yeah," Marco said. "It's cool. If that's where Erek needs me, then that's where I'll be." He grinned. "It's probably because I'm the smartest. The most able to deal with a bad situation. The best -"

We all cut him off with a chorus of groans, and he laughed. You have to stop Marco when he gets on a roll about himself like that, or he'll go on for hours. Jake was still smiling as he said, "Yeah, I'm sure that's why. But I was going to let you pick your own backup, since you're taking the most dangerous mission of the six of us."

I thought he'd take Ax for his tail, or even Rachel for her battle morphs, despite the fact she'd almost knocked him out five minutes ago. Maybe because of the fact she had almost knocked him out five minutes ago. So he surprised me really good when, without hesitation, he said, "All right, then. I'll take Tobias."

(What?) I blurted. Everybody, including Ax, was looking at him funny. Nobody had expected that.

He shrugged. "The whole point of backup is to have someone watch your back. Nobody does that as well as Tobias, not even close." He tipped a wink up at me. "You know, that is, if you'll go with me after the jerk comment I made earlier."

(Yeah, sure,) I said, still a little stunned. I tried to shake it off. (I got you covered.)

"Good," Jake said. "That's settled. The rest of us are on our own, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Erek says we just have to make ourselves seen, maybe leave a scratch or two on a couple of controllers, and get out of Dodge." He passed out the assignments. "I'm at Allendale. Rachel, you're at Meridian Mutual. Ax is going to hit Seabreeze Financial, and Cassie will take care of Armitage."

Jake didn't finish a moment too soon. As he finished saying the word "Armitage," Erek skidded to a stop just inside the barn doors. He had been really moving – there were eight-inch-deep furrows left in the hard red clay where he screeched to a halt. "Look alive!" he called to us. "The Yeerks are moving out, and they're in a hurry!"

Jake took a second to give us all an encouraging look before he started to grow feathers. "You heard the man. We all know what we're doing. Let's get to it."