The next book!
I decided to skip the second and third books since with the change in events they wouldn't have happened or happened differently.
So this is book four: The Message. Told from Cassie's point of view. The first snippet is told from Ax's point of view.
I was going to wait for the JC Forums to come back online but seeing that it's been nearly two months since they went down I felt that you guys here deserved something.
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Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
We have been down here for many days. Our Dome Ship was destroyed by the Yeerks. We saw the Blade Ship of a Visser fire on it.
I was horrified and I could tell that Anjinnl-Kardon-Liuary was just as afraid as I was although she tries not to show it.
I try to be brave for the female Computer Technician but it was getting harder. The longer that we were under the ocean the harder it gets on us.
I remember wondering why we were taking her with us to Earth. War Prince Arbron-Bantec-Deromar, a family friend, told me that she was highly gifted with computers and that since odds were that some of us would be staying behind on Earth she would be a great asset.
I did feel bad for her. No other female companions and the older officers would whisper about her when she was around. It seemed that I wasn't allowed in on the secret. If there was one.
/Aximili, what if we are the only survivors?/ Anjinnl asked, she sounded worried. /I will send out a call for help and see what happens./ I told her. She seemed uneasy. /Only fellow Andalites will hear it./ I assured her.
/Well, why don't you start then./ She said. /After all you don't need the permission of a lowly female like me./ She commented.
Once again I felt bad for her. Back on the homeworld she was treated poorly for some reason. Her brother was a scientist since he wasn't allowed in the Military for some reason. Her mother was a virtual outcast and my parents talked privately about her and told me that she had enough problems so they better not catch me making her life hard.
I didn't know about her father since no one was willing to talk about him. Well that was a lie since I did ask once and was told that he was gone and not to bring it up again.
I guess that he must have been killed by the Yeerks and he died disgracefully.
Well I did as I was told and never asked again.
/If we are the only survivors we will need swimming morphs to get away./ Anjinnl commented. I bobbed my eyestalks in agreement. /Try and capture some of the bigger ones that isn't prey./ I told her.
Soon I was ready to begin calling for help.
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Cassie
I woke from a dream, confused. I had dreamed of the ocean and someone calling for help. He was saying something about they did not have a lot of time.
A headed downstairs and stared outside at our fields.
It was fairly early in the morning, the sun hadn't even started to rise. I turned the dream over and over in my head; trying to make sense of it. It was either a weird dream or someone was calling for help.
I wasn't sure which one I liked better.
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We were all at Rachel's house the next day. Jake had called and said that he had found an interesting thing on the news.
Arbron was in human morph and wearing a thoughtful expression.
"So Jake what did you find on the news?" Marco asked. "This," Jake said and pushed a videocassette into the VHS player.
A quick clip played. It showed a guy holding something metal in his hands. It wasn't very big but big enough to be part of something bigger. The camera zoomed in on some writing on the piece of metal. Then the camera showed a female anchor and then the clip ended.
"It's part of the Galaxy Tree!" Arbron breathed. "A part of the Dome to be more precise. I have been receiving calls for help from someone, but I thought that it might be a trap. But if Aximili followed my orders he would have been in the Dome with Anjinnl."
We turned to look at him.
"Who are Aximili and Anjinnl?" Tobias asked slowly, careful to pronounce the names that Arbron had said.
"Aximili is an aristh and Anjinnl is a computer technician. They were both sent to the Dome just before we exited Zero Space." Arbron said simply. "I said that I wanted both of them because I knew Aximili's brother and Anjinnl is talented with computers so I knew that she would be useful if some of us stayed on Earth."
Arbron stood and stared out the window. He was staring out of it when he stumbled and then I blacked out.
/We're here! We don't have much time!/ A voice cried in my head. Once again I was underwater and going deeper.
/Hurry!/ The voice said urgently.
I opened my eyes and saw Jake kneeling over me. "She's awake." He told someone out of my range of sight. "So is Arbron." Marco reported. "Tobias is coming around too." Rachel called out as well.
"What happened?" Jake asked urgently. "I was in the ocean and a voice was calling for help. They don't have a lot of time." I told them.
Arbron nodded. "It might still be a trap. But we can't ignore the possibility that it might not be." He commented.
"So what do we do?" Marco asked. "We find out as much as we can about this and make sure that it isn't a trap." Arbron commented.
We looked at each other guiltily. If we hadn't spied on Chapman twice we might have been able to spy on him again to see if this was the real deal. Arbron had been doing something else for those few days and had only ordered us not to go looking for the Yeerk Pool. We had decided to spy on Chapman and see if we could gather information and make Arbron proud.
Let's just say that it nearly backfired on us in the worst possible way: Rachel was caught and nearly handed over to the Yeerks before we rescued her. Arbron chew us out when he returned. We had tipped our hand to the Yeerks by alerting them that there were morph capable fighters on Earth. The only thing that was working in our favor was that the Yeerks believed that we were Andalites.
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That night we wandered the beach in different morphs. Jake and Rachel were dogs, Arbron was a human while Tobias, Marco and I were in the air as owls.
We were searching to see if we could find any other pieces of the Dome Ship. It was Marco's idea, if it wasn't a trick then the Yeerks would be out here looking as well.
Then I saw them: flashlights. Flying closer I saw a group of humans that all looked familiar. /Controllers./ I warned everyone else.
I couldn't quite make out what they were saying but they were saying something about Visser Three experiencing something and that there was an Andalite somewhere under the ocean, possibly more.
Excited I reported to the others what I was hearing. I saw Arbron nod his head and stare out at the ocean for a short time before walking towards land.
It was a good thing to since the Controllers saw the footprints of Arbron's human morph along with Rachel's dog morph paw prints. One of the Controllers broke away and followed them.
/Hey guys, don't demorph or anything. There's a Controller following you./ I told Rachel and Arbron.
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"We need a swimming morph that will be able to survive a long journey to the Dome." Arbron said as we met in my barn the next day. "We could use dolphins." I suggested slowly. "They are good swimmers and The Gardens has some. We could go at night and acquire them." I stated.
I had reservations about morphing into dolphins seeing that they are very intelligent but I didn't want to voice it out loud and get laughed at.
Arbron nodded his head slowly. "It is a good suggestion." He commented. "I just hope that we can find them before the Yeerks do."
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That night we all flew to The Gardens. We landed near the dolphin tank and demorphed. It didn't take us long to acquire them.
I felt a little better after I asked the one that I acquired for permission.
Once we were done we quickly morphed into owls again and flew back to our homes.
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