Encyclopedia of Concepts and Imagery in Andalite Thought-Speech
Entry: Battle
«Look the predator in the eye»
«A web of silent communication before the joint attack»
Aftran Plisam Pool
#Newcomers
Welcome to the Aftran Plisam Pool! Our Pool culture is still a work in progress, but we'll do our best to integrate you into it. Ask questions and get acclimated here. This is an all-ages well, so if you have a question about a topic that is restricted to the adult well, please take it up in a private message.
Essa 283
Did you really make this message well just for me?
The Sage in the Weeds
No. It's just that when you came to the Pool, we realized we had to have a system in place for newcomers.
Essa 283
That's an awfully nice word for prisoner.
The Sage in the Weeds
None of us can leave this Pool either. Nor can poolies leave the Grash Akdap Pool. Yeerk physiology has limitations. What's your point? [Emoji of a Yeerk scrunching up. The equivalent of a human eye-roll emoji.]
Essa 283
My point is that I don't want to "integrate" into your "Pool culture."
The Sage in the Weeds
Well, you don't get to go back to the Empire. You had the bad luck to infest an Animorph's parent, and the good luck that another Animorph who likes Yeerks was there when she caught you. So are you going to spend the rest of the war whining and wishing you could go back to sucking up your Visser's waste-stream? Or are you going to do something with yourself?
Essa 283
Is there anything to do besides swim around and talk about how much I love inferior species?
The Sage in the Weeds
Eslin 825 knows a lot of lore passed on from the homeworld. Why don't you try and learn something?
Aftran Plisam Pool
#CheeChat
The Chee only enter other message wells in the Pool intranet for administrative purposes. This is the message well where we can chat with any Chee who happen to be logged in to the intranet. This is an all-ages well, so if you want to talk with a Chee about a topic that is restricted to the adult well, please take it up in a private message.
Fighting Every Rane
All of these ideas for how we might present ourselves as appealing options to potential voluntary hosts are very good – I hope someone's archiving them. But I've been thinking about this a lot, and it seems to me that now that the Empire's terrible wars have poisoned the well, there aren't going to be as many humans volunteering to be hosts as there are Yeerks who want them. No matter how well we sell ourselves, the Empire will cast a long shadow over all of us.
Ifflek 508
I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure Fighting Every Rane is spot on. Whether it's because of our Yeerk instincts, our Empire conditioning, or both, most of us want hosts bad. But we're not entitled to them. So how do we bridge the gap? What to do about all of us Yeerks who are starving for connection with another mind and can't have it?
Mielan 34
[Emoji of a Yeerk with crackling electric fields around it. Indicates excitement.] What if we MADE hosts?
Akdor's Worst Nightmare
Mielan 34 We can't make hosts. Humans aren't made, they grow up from babies, just like Yeerks do.
Mielan 34
Wow! I wonder what a human grub looks like!
Ifflek 508
My human host had a baby, Mielan 34. I'll tell you about it in the #AllAges channel.
[Chee][Admin] Bachu
I have an idea.
[Chee] Luis and Zefirita
I have an idea.
Fighting Every Rane
Wow, I think you two sent those messages in the exact same millisecond. Is it the same idea?
[Chee][Admin] Bachu
No.
Mielan 34
How do you know?
[Chee][Admin] Bachu
CheeNet. Our processing speeds are much faster than organic nervous systems.
Ifflek 508
Okay. This is interesting. What are your ideas?
[Chee] Luis and Zefirita
Humans aren't made, but androids like the Chee are. With some work, we could design and manufacture androids as symbionts for Yeerks.
[Chee][Admin] Bachu
My understanding from Aftran is that it's not just the body you want, but the mental closeness. Why not with another Yeerk? We could manufacture robot bodies designed to be steered jointly by two Yeerks.
Akdor's Worst Nightmare
[Emoji of a Yeerk swimming in circles. Indicates confusion.] Kandrona shine and strengthen me, I feel like I'm swimming straight up through the sky into the sun right now. Give me a minute to process this.
Fighting Every Rane
[Emoji indicating surprise] You mean we could all have hosts? Who actually want us there?
Ifflek 508
Yeerks are meant to share with each other. That's the joy of Pool life, good Pool life like we have here. To share a body with a Yeerk… to move through the world together… that would be the most amazing thing I can imagine.
GreenSky
Someone just told me that there was a conversation going on in this channel I couldn't miss, but VANARX SUCK ME UP, I wasn't expecting THIS. [Emoji of a Yeerk illuminated by a bright ray of Kandrona. Indicates physical and spiritual nourishment.]
Akdor's Worst Nightmare
Where do we go from here? How do we choose?
[Chee] Luis and Zefirita
I'm not sure you have to. I plan to go ahead with my project if you all are interested, regardless of what Bachu does with her idea.
Toby
Ax's thought-speak voice fell like shrapnel on the whole Hork-Bajir valley, rousing us all from our nests.
«Soldiers, go to your positions! There are Yeerk forces in the forest!»
I jolted from fast asleep to fully alert in less than a breath. I focused on the silky-soft feathers and strangely familiar talons of my long-eared owl morph, and the night opened up to my senses.
«What Yeerk forces? How many?» I asked, reaching out for Ax with my thought-speech.
«A squad of Hork-Bajir, with support from human-Controllers and hunter Taxxons. The Hork-Bajir are wearing bands, indicating that they are special forces. My owl eyes do not have color vision, so I do not know which special forces.»
The trees shook with people rising from sleep and taking their positions. All my emergency drills were paying off, I could see. I was the second to last to arrive at the morpher gathering point at the promontory overlooking the valley – all the Animorphs could morph faster than me except Loren. Down at the bottom of the ravine, my warriors gathered into squads. Loren floated in last, joining our strange little flock of owls.
«Tell me exactly what you saw,» I told Ax.
«I was flying from my scoop to the valley. I heard strange noises in the forest and saw a squad of Hork-Bajir special forces with hunter Taxxons, searching. They are not near here. But I am sure one Hork-Bajir-Controller turned its head and looked directly at me, though I ought to have been unnoticeable.»
«They've been trained,» I said. «They can detect a morph. They saw your hrala.»
«And they're hunting us,» Jake said grimly.
«The forest is huge,» Cassie said. «They won't find us in a night.»
«But they'll find us sooner or later. Unless we stop them,» Rachel said, and I swear she almost sounded excited.
«We can't hope to beat them in a direct assault right now,» I said, thinking of the tactics Ax had worked so hard to teach me, combined with the hard experience of raids I'd led my people on, sometimes to their deaths, sometimes to the freedom of our siblings. «Not when they're prepared and we just woke up, not when we're fighting on their terms, not without the advantage of morphers taking them by surprise. We have to learn more, set the terms of a battle we can win later. Tonight is a holding action. Distract… and capture.»
«You want to catch a Controller,» Rachel said eagerly.
My blood ran hot. This squad of Yeerk torturers were using my people, and our unique gifts, to stamp out our last hope for freedom. The thought of these slaves being driven through the woods, fearing every moment they might find their free brethren and doom us, made me sick with fear and anger. «No. I want to free a comrade.»
«You should,» Cassie said. «But what about the Yeerk? We don't have to kill Yeerks we capture. Not with the Aftran Plisam Pool available.»
«They're war criminals, Cassie!» I snarled. «I know you've met some Yeerks sympathetic to your cause. But those were human-Controllers. Every single Hork-Bajir-Controller has committed unspeakable crimes. The average lifespan of a Hork-Bajir in Yeerk captivity is fourteen years. It's been thirty years since the Andalites massacred my people and the Yeerks enslaved the rest. Where do you think my parents came from? Where do you think I came from?»
A stunned silence followed. Then Rachel began heatedly, «Are you saying they – »
Cassie cut her off. «Rachel, don't.»
«The first step in the recovery of a Hork-Bajir new-free,» I said, «is looking them in the eye and telling them their rapist is dead. I will not discuss this further. We need to come up with a strategy, now.»
«We're the bait,» Tobias said. «Any of us in bird morph up above the treeline is like a Bat-signal in the sky for anyone who knows what they're looking for. We can each fly in a different direction and split up the group.»
«And get shot at,» Marco groused.
I said, «Only for a little while. I think we have it. I'll let my people know.»
I rode as a bark beetle on Jake's back. He, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco were wolves, moving swiftly below the canopy where we could not be easily seen. I wished desperately that we had trained up more morphers already, if only so I could have kept in touch with my warriors through thought-speech. As it was, I kept them updated on our position, but got no replies.
Jake stopped abruptly and growled. «I smell them.»
«Let's do it,» Rachel said, thrumming with tension.
«Hold,» I told Meret Kar and her squad. «We've found them. You'll see us in the sky soon.»
«We have to split up,» Tobias said. «So we don't all fly up from the same spot.»
Jake trotted away from the other wolf-shaped Animorphs. «Drop off here,» he said. «I'll go a little farther.»
I let go of his fur and fell into the leaf litter, a long drop relative to my body even for a Hork-Bajir. I demorphed, gratefully drinking in the flow of the hrala currents all around me. Through a gap in the trees, I saw a tight knot of hrala that had to be Tobias, whose second morph to owl had been minor and swift compared to the changes the rest of us had to make. I flinched at the sound of Dracon beams firing at him, and focused on my own morph to owl. Tobias could take care of himself in the air, better than any of us.
As my senses changed throughout the morph, the forest became dead of hrala currents, but came alive with the slobber of Taxxons, the snarls of my captive brethren, and the blaze of Dracon fire. I launched myself into the sky and quickly assessed everyone's positions. Even to the owl's senses, my warriors were almost undetectable to the east, taking shelter in the trees with the thickest canopies – only the slightest rustle of leaves gave them away. The Yeerk forces had already split, chasing after the Animorphs, humans and Taxxons on the forest floor and Hork-Bajir in the trees, firing at the owls through the branches. A Hork-Bajir-Controller tried to rally the forces to chase after only one Animorph, but the chaos had already broken out and could not be contained.
And then a banded Hork-Bajir-Controller caught sight of me, shouted to get the attention of his fellows, and leveled his Dracon beam. I beat at the night air and took off, the pulse of the Dracon beam deafening to the owl's ears as it streaked by me. Fortunately, I had played this game before, scouting sites for our raids and sometimes getting spotted.
«We're all in the sky!» Tobias cried. «Count off! I have ten Hork-Bajir, ten humans, and two Taxxons. Jake?»
Most of us were less precise in our estimates than Tobias, distracted as we were by trying to not to get shot down. But then Loren said, «I only see one Hork-Bajir here, plus two humans and four Taxxons.»
I could spot her easily, as the only other long-eared owl in our group. I explained her location to my people in terms they would understand, and added, «Free our sibling. Don't try to defeat this whole force. One more sibling free is enough for – »
TSEEEEWWWWW!
I had been distracted by talking to my people. My left wing was gone! I was falling!
«Toby! Land in the trees! Break your fall!» Tobias cried.
I remembered Jake's lesson: I just had to be alive enough to demorph. The fall was going to hurt, but that didn't matter. I rotated so my wing would hit the tree first and take some of the shock of impact. The tree slammed up toward me, and my remaining wing shattered. The owl screamed in agony. My head swam from the impact, and I saw stars, but I didn't lose consciousness. That was all I needed. I reached for my own body through the blinding red pain, and it came back to me, whole and strong.
I stayed in my body – it was the best way to blend in, right now – and swung as fast as I could through the trees toward Loren's last position. I heard crashing through the canopy, saw vast tangles of hrala, and skirted all of it, not knowing who was friend or foe. Then I heard a rush of Taxxons screaming for the blood of a fallen comrade, and knew I was in the right place. I had a Hork-Bajir morph constructed by the Frolis Maneuver, taught to me by Ax, so I could become more anonymous in a crowd of Hork-Bajir. I morphed to it so I had thought-speech again, and tried to contact Loren, who had been closest to this point. «Loren? What's going on?»
«Some of your people caught a Hork-Bajir-Controller,» she said. «Others are distracting the Yeerks away with a feint while they take the Controller away. A lot of Yeerks hear the commotion and are coming this way. Everyone's trying to lose their tails – I'm in dog morph running east right now.»
«Do you know anything about where my people are?» I couldn't risk going up in owl morph to spot them; I'd be an easy target.
«I lost them when I demorphed,» Loren said apologetically. «They're somewhere around here. I think we'd better just lose them and run back to the Valley. I mean, won't getting all our hrala in one place just make us easier to find?»
I reached out with my thought-speech to Meret, but I couldn't seem to get hold of her. She was outside my thought-speak range. So was her second-in-command.
«You're right,» I said. «I… suppose I have to trust they can take care of themselves.»
I demorphed and made my way back to Kref Magh, alone. It took a little longer this way than how we'd come; I don't have the stamina of a wolf, and had to stop to catch my breath, especially after so many morphs. When I returned, all the Animorphs except Tobias and Ax were there, and half the squad of warriors – the half unburdened by a captive. I checked in with them immediately. One of them had died in the scramble, and there hadn't been time to collect his body. It would be food for the Taxxons. I joined Meret to tell his husband he wouldn't be coming home, and the minutes until the rest arrived at Kref Magh ticked like a metronome in the back of my mind.
Tobias's thought-speech shattered the quiet moment I had, sitting with the grieving husband in his nest that would be too empty now. «They're coming! Ax is with them.»
I touched my forehead blades in solemn farewell, and swung through the trees to the bottom of the easiest climbing approach down the valley, where the party would doubtless arrive. Maka Hullan, the person with the most Hork-Bajir medical knowledge in the valley, joined me soon after. We nodded grimly to each other and dug a pit for the captive, as we had done so many times before.
Ax floated down in owl morph. «They are coming. They have the Gold Band.»
Gold bands. Gold like hrala. It was so wrong for the Yeerks to take that, too, from us. "Is the Controller conscious? Did we lose anyone else?"
«The Controller is knocked out but stirring. No losses, though some took serious injuries subduing the captive.» Ax flew on. «I will gather the Animorphs.»
The squad climbed down carefully, carrying the Gold Band between them. When they reached us, I seized the captive, buried her head in the pit up to her hindmost nostrils, and cut off the hateful gold band. Maka Hullan did triage on the wounded warriors, sorting out those who would regenerate on their own from those who needed medical attention. She did a medical examination of the Controller and told me her findings, then let the seriously wounded away for treatment.
Tobias landed on a branch overhead. The other Animorphs came soon after in their own bodies. "Gold Bands," I announced with distaste. "We need to find out about them. Before they find us."
"We can't afford to wait three days," Jake said.
"We don't have to," Cassie said. "If we offer the Yeerk the Aftran Plisam Pool, it might – "
"Do you have a cup?" I said. Cassie drew out a small collapsible camping cup from her jacket pocket. Of course. "It rained yesterday. There'll still be pools of standing water over there." I nodded to a dried up streambed. Cassie went. I turned to Ax. "Put your blade to her throat." I seized the Controller's neck in a slot between two blades and yanked her head up. Ax's blade went instantly to the base of her neck. Her eyes were unfocused, disoriented from the pit. I said, "Listen very carefully if you don't want to die of starvation, Yeerk."
The Gold Band's neck twisted in my hand as the Yeerk tried to get her eyes to focus. She cut her host a little on Ax's blade and bled sluggishly. I felt her neck vibrate as the Yeerk laughed. "It speaks like a Yeerk."
I wanted to choke out the Yeerk, but that would only hurt her frightened host. I shoved my face into hers. "I speak like someone who has you at my mercy."
The Yeerk's superiority shifted to anger, as it so often does in Yeerks I've captured. "And what do you have to offer me besides starvation?"
Cassie returned holding the cup of water. "Have you heard of the Aftran Plisam Pool?"
The Yeerk sneered. "Human bandit. Stealing our children away and spreading the word that you've taken them to paradise."
"If we'd wanted to just kill them," Jake said levelly, "that would have been much simpler. Less risky. We wouldn't have bothered with some trick."
"Where is it?" the Yeerk said. "I want to see it."
"Not here." Cassie held up the cup. "But I can take you there. I want to take you there. I've seen the fugue. It's horrible."
"On one condition," I said. "You tell us about the Gold Bands. How many of you there are. Where you're based."
The Yeerk looked down at the pit, then at the cup in Cassie's hand. "I don't want to die," she said softly. And she told us everything. I listened and trusted in Ax's memory to retain all the details.
When she was done, I gestured to Cassie and the cup. She said, "I'll take you there myself." I loosened my grip and let the Yeerk bend her host's neck down to the cup, and slither out of her ear. Her host, now free, swayed and broke into low, gravelly creaking sounds, our equivalent of crying. I touched my forehead blades to hers, then turned and snatched the cup out of Cassie's hands. I took out the Yeerk, held her up for the new-free to see, and cut her in half with my wrist blade. She gave a low, long creak of gratitude and held my hand gently to where I'd gripped it in a chokehold, stroking, soothing the hurts.
Beyond the new-free's cries, I heard human ones. Cassie was sobbing and shaking. "You killed her. You said you'd let her go to the Aftran Plisam Pool. You broke your promise."
Seeing Cassie cry for that monster filled me with rage. I turned away. "Tobias, please call for Elgat Kar. Friend," I asked the new-free, "what is your name?"
"Inti Bejoo," she rasped. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She unbent her neck and looked around. "Is this the free place?"
"Yes. We call it the green place." I heard the branches rustle overhead. "I am Toby Hamee, the Seer of the green place. Elgat Kar is in the trees to help you recover. Are you strong enough to climb there with her?"
Inti's face lit. "Oh. I would love to climb. It has been so long." She reached for the tree and climbed slowly, clumsily, but deliberately into the canopy. I heard Elgat greet her, and knew she would be taken care of.
I looked back down at the Animorphs. They were impassive – though Tobias always is – except for Cassie, who held her dæmon to her mouth, eyes fixed on me, bright and wet and piercing. I stared back, unrelenting. "Maka Hullan did a medical check-up on Inti before you came. She found that she was in the early stages of gestation. She had self-inflicted wounds from trying to pierce through the egg before it could harden." I found her Yeerk's remains on the ground and slowly, deliberately, crushed them beneath my foot. "This disgusting piece of rot could only ever bring filth and poison to your little pool of idealists, Cassie."
The Animorphs were shocked still, horrified. Cassie's eyes fountained silent tears. Rachel and Loren cried too. Marco looked like he might be sick. Good. "I never want to hear any of your opinions about how my people should deal with Yeerks, ever again. Is that understood?"
Rachel put her hand on Cassie's shoulder. She looked at me, eyes wet and blazing blue. Abineng pawed at the dirt with his forehoof and said, "You can't just – "
Merlyse landed on Abineng's head and whispered something in his ear. He fell silent. "Let it go, everyone," Jake said. "This is Toby's call. Not ours."
I nodded at Jake. This was why we could work together to lead this resistance, him and I. The trees called to me, and I retreated to my roost, to catch whatever sleep I could.
Ax
While I aimed for the neck of the Gold Band before me, another came from the side and clubbed my flank with a thick tail, making me stagger. The neck of the one I'd struck opened in a ruin of green blood, and I wheeled around to face the other. The battle ground on, with its constant calculation: how hurt could I get before I had to morph? How many morphs had I already done, and how many would deplete me utterly?
The Gold Band training grounds filled with a familiar, hateful djafid, the oppressive song of Visser Five. His thought-speech boomed. «I see you human scum panic when the advantage of your illicit Andalite technology is taken away! It is only a matter of time until the Gold Bands run you to ground. Now, which of you bandits is Loren?»
My hearts stuttered. I had nearly forgotten. The Yeerks did not only know that the Animorphs were mostly human. They knew that Loren was an Animorph. And Visser Five remembered her.
When the Visser came into view, the free Hork-Bajir screamed. The half-open training ground, walled but not roofed, echoed with their anguish. «What's wrong?» Tobias asked.
«That was a clever trick, Loren,» the Visser went on. «To make me believe that you were the human child David. But you deceive me no longer. You are the hoofed creature with the shorter horns, are you not?»
Toby was in the battle as a Hork-Bajir, but in morph, so she could thought-speak. «His host. Alloran. His hrala is… broken. The anchor severed. He has no more hrala than an animal. It's horrible. Like staring at a ruined corpse.»
«Yes,» Loren said. «That's me. I'm an Animorph. What's wrong, Esplin? Scared? I did propel a bunch of rocks at you back in the day. You could have rewritten the universe itself if you'd managed to beat an Andalite aristh and a primitive human girl. Too bad, huh?»
Have I mentioned that I admire my taf ratheen very much?
«I infested you once, Loren,» Visser Five said silkily. «I can do it again. I have an underling with a reputation for breaking human hosts. Gold Bands! Stun them all! Human, Andalite, and Hork-Bajir alike will become our hosts!»
I found an opening between two Gold Bands and leapt through to Visser Five. I could not see him the way the Hork-Bajir could, but I knew they were right: Visser Five had destroyed Alloran-Semitur-Corass from the inside, and piloted his desecrated corpse. The outrage could not continue. I sprang toward him and whipped at his stalk eyes, even as Hork-Bajir fought with each other and died all around us.
Visser Five parried at the last moment, sending a jarring impact up my tail. I jerked my tail back, knowing I could not hold directly against his strength. I leapt to the side, feinted with a flurry of blows, and landed a true one, stinging across his chest. His main eyes narrowed, and he held his tail forward and charged into me by main force. I only stopped him by swiping toward his legs, forcing him to pivot.
«Fall back!» Prince Jake cried. I came to my senses and realized we were losing. Tobias was not visible above us. All the Hork-Bajir around me had gold bands. I ran and jumped to rejoin my force, taking a stunning Dracon beam to the end of my tail. I lost fine control in the muscles there; I would only be able to torf with the flat of the blade.
The Animorphs formed a perimeter around Tobias as he morphed to polar bear. The others could have stood to morph away damage as well – Prince Jake stood on only three legs, and Rachel's eyes seemed glued shut by blood. «We have to make an exit for the free Hork-Bajir,» Prince Jake said. «We can always fly away, but they need a distraction so they can make it to the tree line.»
«I'm ready,» Tobias said grimly, rising up as a polar bear. «You morph next, Jake. We just keep it coming.» But Tobias sounded tried, and we could not keep morphing away our wounds forever. Would it be enough? We couldn't leave our Hork-Bajir comrades here to be captured.
A sound caught at my mind, out of place and wrong, like a bone turned the wrong way in its socket. It was like Dracon fire, but not like Dracon fire at all, because it was Shredder fire. It burst through the discharges of Dracon beams, clearer, more abrupt. My stalk eyes nearly twisted off as I followed that sound to the four armed Andalite warriors who burst into the training grounds.
«This is it!» Prince Jake called. «Go, go, go!»
A Shredder blast hit the tail of a fleeing free Hork-Bajir, vaporizing it. I looked to who had fired, barely registering in my alarm and confusion that it was a female – never mind how that could be possible, there was no time. «Only fire on the ones with gold bands!» I told them, holding my ground to keep the Gold Bands from pursuing the fleeing Guardians of the Galaxy. «The ones without the bands are free Hork-Bajir!»
«Free Hork-Bajir?!» said one warrior, shocked. But the others were not distracted. They focused their attack on the true enemy, breaking through with Shredder fire and precise tailwork. The young female in particular wielded her blade with deadly exactness. And one of them broke through the line with a clear shot to Visser Five, righteous fury burning in his eyes.
«Arbat!» Visser Five said, moving toward him. «You – »
Arbat gave a wordless thought-speech cry and fired. His aim was not true, missing the brain, but it severed Alloran's torso clean from the rest of his body. Blue blood fountained. A Gold Band rushed to his severed top half, opened his skull with a wrist blade, and pulled Visser Five away from Alloran's dying brain in a long gray smear. I wanted more than anything to crush that smear to nothing beneath my blade, but I had a duty to the free Hork-Bajir warriors. I covered their retreat as best I could with only the flat of my blade. I was distantly aware of the cries of shock from the Animorphs. They echoed dully around my brain. I could have spared Alloran this fate. I'd had him beneath my blade. And now he'd died without honor, and his tormentor still lived.
«We must go,» the young female told me. «Come find us later. Alone. My name is Estrid-Corrill-Darrath. Our ship is on the second smallest island off the coast of this human city.» She fled the battle, morphing away a burn on her flank as easily as Cassie would. «You'll be safer now. The Abomination is no longer.»
Cold despair settled over me. «No. Visser Five recently captured another Andalite. He will simply use that one as his new host.»
«What?» Estrid looked back at me with a stalk eye. «Come to our ship as soon as you can. Don't bring your pet humans. We have much to discuss.» I lost her to sight as I dodged a Dracon pulse and set to my own escape.
Once we were aloft and out of Dracon range, Loren said privately, «Are you all right, Ax?»
«Do not concern yourself for me. Are you all right? Visser Five singled you out.»
«I'm not going to lie,» Loren said. «It's scary that he's making this personal.»
I began, «We will not – »
«Ax, who the FUCK were those guys?» Rachel said. «Is the Andalite fleet here? What is going ON?»
«I do not know every Andalite in the military,» I snapped.
«I counted four of them,» Tobias said. «Did they talk to you? Did you hear any more of them we didn't see?»
«Did you see those Shredders they had?» Rachel said enviously. «We could use a dozen or two of those.»
«It can't be the whole fleet,» Jake said. «There were only four. Are they a scouting mission or something?»
There were so many questions, as many as I had in my own mind. I was so overwhelmed I could not produce any answers.
«The purple Andalite definitely talked to Ax,» Marco cut in. «Right after his buddy blew up Visser Five – which, holy shit, though I'm pretty sure a Gold Band rescued the Yeerk. What does the purple mean anyway? I've only ever seen blue.»
Finally, a question I knew how to answer. «She is a female. Even females answer the call to fight Yeerk tyranny! She must be remarkable, to have attained her position. She was unusually skilled.»
«Are you saying,» Rachel said, voice rising, «that only extra special females can become warriors? But any old male schmuck is good enough?»
«Andalite females excel in the life and social sciences, not martial arts,» I said. «They have never been admitted to the academy before. This female must be special.»
«Have you considered,» Rachel went on, «that Andalites are a bunch of sexist asswipes?»
«Guys,» Marco said. «Can we focus on the fact that there are Andalite warriors on Earth who just blew up Visser Five?!»
«They only killed Alloran,» Prince Jake said. «Like you said. A Gold Band pulled the Visser out of his brain – which was incredibly gross, by the way. They'll just put him in Gafinilan.»
«Who is in the late stages of a chronic wasting disease,» Loren pointed out, sounding contemplative and sad.
«He has the morphing power,» I said. «Mertil told me he had been living publicly as a human.»
«So he can just trap Gafinilan in morph as anything he wants, once he gets too sick,» Prince Jake concluded. «It does mean he can't morph all those monsters anymore, though.»
I tried not to take insult at Prince Jake analyzing the merits and drawbacks of Prince Gafinilan's body as if it were a robotic design. He had to consider these matters, as a prince. But I would be the one who would deliver this terrible news to Mertil. The only comfort I would be able to offer was that the severance chamber had been destroyed, and Visser Five could not destroy Gafinilan as he had Alloran.
«Which brings me back to my question,» Marco said. «What did the warrior chick say?»
«She asked me to come alone to their ship.»
«Cool, cool, that's not sketchy at all.»
Tobias said fiercely, «I'm coming with you.»
«We're all coming with Ax,» Prince Jake said. «I'd love to be able to trust every Andalite we meet, but we can't. Their track record has been pretty bad. We'll ride along as fleas and see what's going on.»
«And what about the Gold Bands?» Rachel said, frustrated. «We didn't shut them down, and now we don't have the element of surprise. We don't have time for this Andalite bullshit.»
«Perhaps they could help us,» I said, but I sounded doubtful even to myself.
«When has an Andalite besides you ever helped us?» Marco said. «And don't say Elfangor, he just made our lives a million times worse.»
«We have to move ahead with the morph training,» Prince Jake said. «If we had thirty morphers, we could really put the hurt on the Gold Bands.»
«We can't rush that,» Tobias said. «They'll find us before we're done teaching them.»
«We'll have to leave that to the Hork-Bajir for now,» Prince Jake said. «Tomorrow, we meet the Andalites.»