Author's Note: Wow. I've officially been working on this story for ten years now (this is why I'm not a professional writer. Me and deadlines never get along.) I really need to get my butt in gear, don't I? I've dreamed of the end of this story, and the beginning of it's post-#54 sequel, for so long now, but getting there has always been tricky because of the book timeline and keeping faithful to the events going on in the "background" along with all the events I've personally wanted to see added to the series. By the way, for anyone who's interested in the parallels, here's the lineup so far:
Chapter 1-3: Post #50.
Chapter 4-7: #51.
Chapter 8-12: In between #51 and #52.
Chapter 13-21: #52.
Chapter 22-28: In between #52 and #53.
The next chapter, 29, begins our movement into #53, which means endgame's around the corner. To be totally honest, I'd have loved to write a few more chapters of stuff before we got into #53, because that's an area with a lot of stories to be told. But by supreme irony, the Yeerks' feeding cycle is problematic for me as an author, because that time span HAS to be exactly 2.5 days, and no matter who's perspective I write from, I've been keeping the flow of time constant. There's no way the Pool Ship can land anytime after that, because the Yeerks would all starve to death.
The format of this chapter, consequently, is wiiiiiiiidely different from what has come before. It is a series of short drabbles happening all over the battlefield (and beyond) that outline the events leading up to the pool ship's arrival. None of them are identified, on purpose, although a perceptive reader might be able to figure out who's who. Call it artistic license, not giving you a breath as I rapid-jump from character to character should convey the sense of chaos I'm looking for.
"What is going ON out there?" I snapped, hoping the annoyance in my tone would convey my displeasure adequately. The person on the other end was going through the motions of sounding contrite and embarrassed, but I could tell something was off about it. I wasn't the smartest person in the world, I knew that, but I had gotten far in life by being one of the shrewdest. I knew how to play the game, and I knew I was being played.
The voice sighed. "I wish I could explain it, sir. All I can tell you is that the media's blowing it all out of proportion."
"An entire city's downtown area is now a sinkhole, Lieutenant Governor Parnell. I don't see how that CAN be blown out of proportion. I'm absolutely astonished that it's not national news yet." Astonished and a little suspicious, but I wasn't about to tell him that, and his silence on the point was all too telling. "And where, pray tell, is the Governor when all this is going on?"
At that, the first hint of a smile in that voice. "Oh, she's in a secure location," he replied. "SOP for emergencies, as you well know." Something about the way he said it was quite ominous.
"I want to be talking to her by nightfall," I ordered. "See to it that it happens." I didn't wait for confirmation, I hung up immediately. Anyway, I was pretty sure he would do it or his resignation would be front page news the next day.
I sighed and picked up the phone again. "Get me General Doubleday. I need his company for a domestic mission."
"We've got to get out of here," I warned, an urgency in my whispered tone.
The adorable boy, currently a less-than-adorable bearded man, blinked at me. "Close to my morph time?" he asked.
I nodded. "But that's not the problem. The Yeerks are here. They're looking for you, and they know you're not one of them."
Ten minutes later, we were two birds of prey enjoying the night sky.
«So what now?» I asked him.
He was silent a moment. «I guess we go to Erek's after all. We should be where the Kandrona is. Hon, are you sure we were compromised?»
«Believe me, they were dead sure you weren't a Yeerk,» I responded. He didn't push the issue, and I felt a pang of guilt. I knew I probably should have told him how I was so sure, but I didn't know how to interpret it. Didn't know for sure if it was just another layer of double-agent shenanigans or an actual, legitimate betrayal.
Better to let him remain ignorant so he can focus on what he needs to. Better to figure such things out after the war.
The human-Controller's head hit the floor and rolled off the deckplating. He had assured me that human children would not be ruthless enough to detonate a bomb in their own hometown.
Earth would truly have been mine a long time ago were it not for my imbecilic advisors. Truly, I would have to learn not to be so blindly trusting of their advice.
«Let's finish the job for them. I want the entire town incinerated before the Pool ship lands.»
So hungry.
So desperately hungry, all the time. In my sleep, in my dreams, I still can't help but constantly be on the lookout for new meat to tear into. It infects my thoughts, my deeds… my very soul.
Even now, digging, constantly eating at the soil in front of me, I cannot focus on what I really want to think about, which is this thing the Redmeats (generally it was hard to think of them as 'humans', when the habit in our native tongue was simply to name each species we encountered after the color or texture of it's blood) have called 'Music'.
I'd first heard it while doing a shift with a human-Controller on board a Bug Fighter, and I'd since been catching little bits of it on the few spare moments I could find. I was particularly fond, of course, of the songs that involved food and eating, but I couldn't replicate many of the sounds with my own guttural voice.
The last time I had tried, two of my Yeerk allies, human and Hork-Bajir Controllers, taunted me.
"Hah! Look at that, Sebrus. I think that Taxxon is trying to /sing/!" the human-Controller cried gleefully, shaking his head.
The Hork-Bajir Controller snorted, before closing it's eyes and shrinking, human skin rippling across it's snake-like features.
"Pity he can't morph to human like you, ey? Perhaps he'd get a better singing voice out of it!"
I ignored them, burrowing deeply into the rock. But in my head, I found the taunt prophetic. Soon I WILL morph,Yeerk, I thought, and when the Animorphs grant me that power, things will change between us…
My human host was dying. I suppose I could have saved myself, disengaged from her, but there would be no place to go on this dismal battlefield. I wasn't one of those lucky Yeerks who could morph – my choices were to leave her and wait to be stepped on, or die with her. I decided that we might as well meet our fate together.
I owed her that much.
«I'm so sorry,» I told her. In death, at least, I could finally say what a loyal Yeerk warrior never has any business saying. «I'm sorry for everything I said, everything I did… the people I recruited… this whole blasted war. I'm sorry for it all.»
The dying human was surprised by my rant. In three years of infesting her, I had never even so much as spoken to her directly, even once. I couldn't. I could never let her know how much it was eating me up inside, Controlling her as I had been. She had her suspicions, of course – and, being a Yeerk, I was painfully aware of every moment when she suspected my regret over my duties – but she never asked me directly.
As life slipped away from her, indeed from both of us, she gave me a last gift. She sent me the thought I had been fantasizing about hearing for three years.
«I forgive you.»
"I still don't understand, Norman. You've always said you HATED this stuff."
"Trust me, Margaret, it was never hatred. If anything I was afraid that I loved it too much."
"Well, you've clearly embraced it now. Six /cases/… but couldn't we have had some Raisin and Spice? Why all Maple and Ginger?"
«This is kinda neat, I've never been to space.»
I smirked with my host's mouth. I knew he was worried about his aunt and uncle, and that his boyish chatter was just a cover for that, but I enjoyed the undercurrent of legitimate enjoyment he was feeling at seeing his home planet through the window of the Bug Fighter.
«Yes, well… if you want to see /Earth/ again, I need to concentrate on docking with the Pool ship.»
I had to sit squat on my host's legs to reach the controls. The Hork-Bajir next to me was teasing me about it.
"Gyelin hagra let you grub shacks fly anyway."
My host winced at the term 'grub shacks'. It was a derogatory term recently employed in our language for a Yeerk with a youthful or immature host. Of course, ageism is just one of the many bad habits my people have picked up from humans since the Yeerk invasion of Earth began.
To the Hork-Bajir, I replied, "I happen to be a Delta-class pilot, /thank/ you. Let's see you fly this ship half as well." To my host, I was more gentle. «Don't let it get to you, Tyler. I'd choose you for company any day.»
I felt my host swell with pride. «Thanks, Urbosh.»
I shuddered with the pain, pain I couldn't quite feel fully myself. I felt my hands struggle against the bonds tying them to the chair.
"Got another one, Corporal," someone called, looking at me struggling. "The Yeerk in his head is dying."
«Told you I'd win,» I gloated. «Told you I'd see freedom again! HAH!»
The Yeerk was too exhausted and wracked with pain to retort. «Yeah… 'booyah',» he murmured, before crawling out of me and dropping to the floor, where my bunkmate's shoe put him out of his misery forever.
"One less slug in the world. Welcome back, Private Harris."
I watched in disbelief as my mom poured cereal into three bowls. One full wall of our kitchen was missing, and the stove was still a smoldering wreck, but it was as if she couldn't even see the damage.
"I said I'm going," I repeated, louder, clutching onto Ashley's little hand. Oddly, she wasn't crying. Even at six, she was taking this a hell of a lot better than mom was.
"You can't go to school without /breakfast/," my mom repeated, strain in her voice as the boundries of her delusional world were pushed against.
I didn't bother pointing out that the middle school had been completely destroyed.
"I'm not going to school," I said, as firmly and gently as possible. "I'm leaving town. I'm taking my sister and running as far away from this hellhole as possible."
My mother whirled angrily at me. "You can NOT run away from home, young man. I'll call the police."
I couldn't help it – I laughed. "/What/ police? We don't have any police anymore." I gestured at the missing wall. "This town is gone, mom. We stay here, we die. We've got maybe days before…"
"Airplane!" Ashley said giddily, pointing out the window of the wall that was still present. I glanced at her, and then followed her gaze outside, my eyes widening.
"I was wrong," I said, oddly calm. "We don't have days."
It wasn't an airplane.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!