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Author's Note: I already hear people screaming "Wait a minute! The battle with Lieutenant Colonel Larsen happened before the Governor's speech! Continuity glitch! KASU! Or ASU, at least!" What I offer to these skeptics is that the Governor's speech was probably replayed every hour on TV for almost a full day or two before the Yeerks managed to squash it. So Eric and Chris heard the first broadcasting of the newscast, while the one the Animorphs hear at the end of Book #51 is a taped repeat of the announcement.
That is the formal, "official" explanation for the purposes of this fan fiction.
If you don't like that explanation, you can think of the following events as one of the many, many battles that took place /after/ the governor's speech, because certainly it would take more than one encounter to free all the rounded up National Guard troops. And if you don't like /that/, then feel free to declare that I messed up and just move on.
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Watching the horror on Eric's face as he lost control of his body went beyond the pain that I'd felt when I'd turned Cody and Martin into Controllers. The way he stared back at me seemed to confirm Orkath's long ago taunt – that his last free thought was, indeed, that I'd led him to it. But I didn't feel pity for him as I saw the defiance radiating in his face, or despair that his struggle with his Yeerk would be hopeless, as mine always was. Because as monumental as this small defeat was for me, personally, I knew the larger events of the night were more important. My mother and brother, Eric's parents… every non-Controller in our town was now aware of the Yeerk invasion. When I got home that night, my family was going to be looking at me with new eyes. Suspicious eyes. Orkath knew how to imitate me perfectly, but his duties as a Yeerk soldier mandated that he do at least a few things that were out of character for me. Eventually, my family would catch on. Assuming they didn't simply demand that I remain in their sight for the next three days, just to be sure.
«If they did that, I'd have to kill them,» Orkath threatened, though there was no anger or malice in his feelings. «Or contain them until I could get my people to take them. What you think is so great an event, Chris, is actually the beginning of the end for your people.»
Martin helped Eric up to his feet, and Eric… the Yeerk in Eric's head marched his body towards us. Extended a hand to me, which "I" took. "Ewell Five-Nine-Three of the Sulp Niar pool," he announced in greeting. "You have my thanks for my new host."
My mouth curved into a smile, but my Yeerk felt no joy at his accomplishment. Strangely, he seemed to regret what he'd done. "Orkath One-Seven-Two," he replied.
Eric looked impressed. "You're in the one hundreds already?" he asked, looking to Martin for confirmation. Martin nodded his head. "That's impressive. Perhaps if I tell Visser One about your success over this host, even after he'd discovered you, you might make Sub-Visser."
Orkath shook my head. "I'd rather not take the chance of discussing anything with the Visser now," he admitted. "After their governor's assault of us, I'm sure he's going to be enraged." He motioned towards the infestation pier. "While I'm here, I might as well feed. In case my host's parents become a problem."
With that, Orkath moved us into line on the pier, behind a Hork-Bajir-Controller and a voluntary human woman. The usual routine was followed, and once my Yeerk left me, I was again placed in a Ramonite box. It was hard to believe that it was only my second time, and this one was premature – four days, I had been morph-capable. So much had happened that it already felt like four hundred. A morph-capable ice cream vendor was placed in the cage with me, but I didn't feel like speaking to him. I curled up in a ball in the corner of the cage and just cried.
I wasn't usually a crier, in the cages. Plenty of people were. I guess they valued their freedom to cry, to let out the pain and suffering that the most recent three days had added to their lives. I preferred talking because, ironically, I had become a much more social person since I'd been infested. I realized now why so many kids had picked on me before. It was because I was uptight around them, so determined to be liked that I never bothered to think about things like common interests, or even really thinking about what they had to say. But with people in the cages it was different, because I knew something about the pain that they were in, the need that they had to tell someone, anyone, about what was happening to them. I knew how to listen and I knew how to talk, and that made me fit in with my fellow captives in a way that I'd never been able to accomplish in school. I wasn't sure if it was my situation, or just something my Yeerk taught me in the way he interacted with people. But in a very small, funny way, the Sharing had kept it's promise to me, and made me truly belong.
I felt a strong, gruff hand on my back, rubbing gently up and down in an attempt to comfort me. "There there, son," the adult captive murmured, "it'll be okay. You'll be okay."
I looked up at him, wiping the tears from my eyes. "Yeah," I replied, but there was no enthusiasm in my voice.
"They know now, y'know," he told me, pointing up towards the surface. "Our families, our friends know."
I pointed in the direction of the pool. "My friend knows now, too," I pointed out despairingly. "Knowing isn't always a good thing."
The man hugged me. I don't know why it made me feel better, but it did. I guess he just didn't have any more words to try to cheer me up with. For a long time, we stayed that way, silent. After awhile I felt a strange, tingling sensation… a feeling of being far away, relaxed. Passive. It was a nice feeling, and for awhile I felt like I might just go to sleep.
I was about to say something to the vendor, but then Tom's thought-speak voice permeated the entirety of the Yeerk pool complex. He enjoyed using the power in place of a human megaphone. «All Morph-Capables, assemble at Entrance Eleven! This is not a drill! The human rebels are attacking one of our recruiting stations!»
I exchanged a grimace with the man, then looked towards the doors to the box, knowing they'd be back for us soon. Sure enough, the box opened and two Hork-Bajir dragged us out, pushing us as rapidly as possible towards the pier.
Once Orkath was in my head again, he approached the somewhat panicked Eric. "I'm afraid you'll have to walk home without me," he announced. "Cover for me with your host's parents – say I went home because I was scared for my family, after the governor's speech."
Eric nodded, and I wished that I could speak to the real Eric, comfort him.
«Don't worry,» Orkath assured me. «I'll make sure you get to speak with him. In three days.» It sounded like a snide comment, but I could tell that he was trying once again, in his own way, to make peace. Were all Yeerks this insane? Did they all bounce back and forth between showing affection for their hosts and then tormenting them? It was like I had two different Yeerks controlling me. Sometimes I hated the nice one more. I hated knowing he could be capable of such kindness, when more often than not, he chose the path of cruelty.
We assembled at the specified entrance, everyone who was available. The two sixth-graders, Rob and Ulie, were there. So was Tom, Jason, Martin, the ice cream vendor, about ten adult human-Controllers I didn't know, and one morph-capable Hork-Bajir-Controller. Tom was in his jaguar morph, one seriously dangerous cat. I'd learned in science class that they were often confused with leopards, but that you could tell the difference by looking for small dots or irregular shapes within the larger rosette markings. They also had a more stocky and muscular body and a shorter tail. My own cougar morph was very likely no match for such a powerful kitty.
«According to radio-ins,» Tom's Yeerk briefed us, «there are seven human rebels in the containment area across from the quad, led by my host's brother, the tiger. They're systematically playing hit-and-run games to get more of the new host body National Guard troops to leave the containment area. Once we clear the entrance, the adult human-Controllers should morph to wolves or cheetahs and keep the new hosts contained. My squadron and I, and Ryall Three-Three-One, will engage the bandits.»
Naturally, there was no time for anyone to ask questions, so the jaguar nodded it's head and Ulie led the group up the dropshaft and into an abandoned warehouse building. We could already hear the roar of the tiger, the shouts of the guards, and what sounded like the snort of an elephant. I don't mind admitting that I was scared. I'd been in one battle with the human bandits, but that encounter was brief and the Yeerk's goal had always been to get away and get reinforcements. Now I was going to be forced to charge into a fight to the death, a fight where I would either kill my would-be saviors or be killed by them.
That thought stayed heavy in my mind even as my ears began to grow short and rounded, whiskers sprouting on my face. My Yeerk had forgotten to undress me, so my purple and green striped shirt was shredded as the strong forelegs of the cougar replaced my own weak human arms. Yellow-buff fur spread out all over my body, and a black-tipped tail shot out of my bum. Overall, I was one of the first to finish the morphing process, though I wish I hadn't been. Jason had an identical cougar morph, Ulie and Rob morphed hyenas, Martin morphed an osprey, and the Hork-Bajir-Controller morphed the one animal his Hork-Bajir host feared more than any other – the deadly skunk. True to their orders, the adult humans all morphed to wolf, save a news anchorwoman who stayed in her human form to open the gates for us. Gates that even now, the humans on the other side were trying to break open in order to escape.
The wolves flanked the outside, to keep any escaping humans contained, and the woman climbed up the steps to the machine control panel that controlled the operation of the solid steel barrier. With the push of a button, the gates opened.
We moved as fast as our morphed bodies could carry us, Jason and I announcing the squadron's arrival with loud cougar roars. Every human, human-Controller and morphed human paused for one moment to acknowledge our arrival.
It gave me time to survey the enemy forces. Tiger. Another wolf. African Elephant. Rhinoceros. Ox. Another osprey. And the one animal that sent a shiver up the edge of my spine – a grizzly bear! It had been a long time since I'd seen one up close, but he looked just as large, just as terrifying, as the one who'd chased me and Craig through the woods in that lifetime when I'd been a normal, uninfested human boy.
«ATTACK!» Tom shouted.
The moment passed, and everyone remembered they were there to fight a battle. With another roar, my Yeerk entered the fray, dodging dracon fire from an uninfested guard who'd managed to grab a weapon. We circled around to stalk the enemy wolf before it could join the Yeerk wolves and get lost in the confusion.
«Die, rebel!» my Yeerk cried, leaping at the wolf with the cougar's powerful hind legs. But this wolf had the intelligence of a rebel warrior, and it easily anticipated and sidestepped my landing point. Taking the opportunity, it sank its wolf teeth into the flesh on my right shoulder. «AHHHH!»
One of the hyenas came to my aid, knocking the wolf off it's haunches and flipping over with it on the ground. «Help!» I heard a girl's voice cry out. «It's got me!»
«I got your back!» another girl's voice replied, as the ox booted the hyena off of it's opponent. My Yeerk once again got involved, leaping onto the ox's back and sinking sharp cougar claws into it's back. Now it was the rebel's turn to let out a thought-speak scream. Thought-speech isn't as easily filtered out as normal speech, so the mass of rebels and Yeerks shouting and screaming quickly became a din in my head, and I was unable to really distinguish one voice from another.
«You glarfash harrac!» someone shouted, and I knew it was the Hork-Bajir skunk. Strange, even in morph, the languages were mixed and meshed together. The skunk turned on the grizzly, raised its tail, and fired its scent-bomb right into the bear's nose. My sensitive cougar senses were quite offended, but I was grateful – at least now Orkath would smell that bear coming and get out of the way.
One of the Yeerk-controlled wolves burst into the fray. «Human soldiers! A battalion, four hundred strong, coming this way!»
«Close the gates!» Tom ordered, and the human who'd stayed outside started to comply. But an osprey shot out of the sky and slammed into her stomach, causing her to fall thirty feet from the control panel to the ground below.
My body turned to take a run towards the controls, but Jake's tiger morph landed right in front of me, teeth bared, growling.
«Hello, Jake,» Orkath greeted, enjoying the effect that hearing "my" thought-speak voice might have on him, since we'd been acquainted. Then he leaped towards the tiger, swinging a paw to slash across Jake's face. The tiger turned his head into it and caught the paw between his teeth, rapidly swaying his head back and forth to rip a chunk of flesh off.
«AHHH!» Orkath screamed again, swinging the other paw to shake Jake off. This one found its mark, smashing across the side of the tiger's face and leaving slash marks on his eye and ear. In pain, the tiger let go.
And then the elephant sent my body flying.
THUD! I landed on the pavement at the far side of the battle, several bones smashed up. The pain was so bad that even though it was mostly the Yeerk's, I could still feel a bit of it. Defeated, the Yeerk began the process of demorphing. As my human ears emerged from the cougar's, I heard the sound of tank treads smashing into the warehouse. Then the sound of a human on a megaphone.
"This is Lieutenant Colonel Larsen of the State National Guard," a strong, authoritative human voice announced. "Any Yeerk forces in this area have two minutes to surrender, or we will open fire." The announcement was followed by the sounds of several dozen cocked rifles. The Yeerk raised my head to look at the assembled troops. Undoubtedly, some of the assembled troops were human-Controllers. But the hardened looks on the battalions' faces made it clear that most were not.
The human bandits pulled back from their positions and moved to fall in line with the human soldiers. Of course, the grizzly bear was given a wide berth, because of its odor.
Orkath's people, including all the wolves, moved forward and turned to form a line of Controllers.
My demorph completed, the Yeerk picked up an errant human gun and joined the ranks of Controllers, in the rear. An infested national guardsman stepped up to speak for the Yeerks. "We don't take orders from lower lifeforms," he sneered. "It is you who will surrender, or witness the annihilation of your forces." With that, most of the Controllers aimed weapons at the remaining captive troops, those who hadn't made their way out or died trying. "Drop your weapons or they get it."
The Lieutenant Colonel looked at the tiger, undoubtedly receiving a private thought-speak message. With a grim nod, he turned to face us again. His eyes locked with mine, and he hesitated a moment, surprised to see a human child in the midst of the enemy forces. But he knew what I was. And who he was dealing with.
"Fire," he ordered.