Encyclopedia of Concepts and Imagery in Andalite Thought-Speech
Entry: Defense
«Herd gathers around the young and the weak»
«Carve a fire break through the brush»
DemonBarberFltStrt - Instant Message
JanathAPP
Thank you for scheduling this with me so promptly.
DemonBarberFltStrt
Hey, it's not like we have a lot else to do. How can I help you?
JanathAPP
We're trying to move more Peace Movement Yeerks out of the Grash Akdap Pool. You have a steady Kandrona supply – we wondered if you could take some into your group.
DemonBarberFltStrt
Oh. HELL YES.
DemonBarberFltStrt
We've started telling chronically ill and disabled people outside of Campsite Rule about the work we've been doing, and people are going wild wanting Yeerks who can do what ours do. We haven't been able to promise anything because we have no control. If you could send us some who are willing to put in the work, we'd pair them with excited hosts.
DemonBarberFltStrt
The Controller who brings our Pool around every three days is Peace Movement. They'll approve it.
JanathAPP
Perfect. Not every Yeerk will be suited to the function these humans desire, but we will try to send Yeerks who are. What is the timing of the Kandrona?
DemonBarberFltStrt
Tef-rane, 11 a.m.
JanathAPP
You have no notion of the great liberation and opportunity you are bringing to us in an hour of need.
DemonBarberFltStrt
Oh, trust me, we are going to put these Yeerks to work.
JanathAPP
Let's find a more secure channel for arranging times and locations.
Rachel
Everyone else was up for breakfast by now, but Jake was still sleeping. I went over to his bed and shook him awake.
Merlyse untucked her head from under her wing. "Whuh?"
"Rise and shine. Enjoy your breakfast while you can, because the Chee are gone and we're gonna run out of food if we don't do something."
Jake groaned and clamped his pillow over his head. Merlyse said, "Shit."
"I was just in the kitchen talking to Marjorie," I said. "You know, the lunch lady? She's basically taken over the food at this point. She says we're gonna run out of food in five days unless we start rationing or go get some more."
Merlyse leaned down from the bedpost and pecked Jake on the shoulder. He grumbled and rolled out of bed. I threw a pair of his jeans at him. "Get dressed. Where were you all night anyway? Cassie wouldn't make eye contact with me this morning."
Jake flushed red as he struggled into his clothing. Merlyse flew over, dragged an undershirt into his hand, and shot me a death glare. I cackled and waited for him outside the yurt with Abineng. When he stumbled outside into the morning drizzle, I practically dragged him by the front of his raincoat to the kitchen, where Marjorie stood under the tarp ceiling with a sheaf of slightly damp papers and a pen. Abineng stood next to her kudu dæmon in the rain.
"Oh, there you are, Jake," Marjorie said. "I've been taking an inventory of what we've got, and here's what I figure we need."
It turned out that most of what we needed was food, basic stuff we could cook up in the kitchen, and some other essentials like soap.
Merlyse read the paper with little jabs of her beak like she was trying to peck at the words. Jake sighed. "We'll have to steal it."
I laughed. "No we don't. My dad's credit card can buy all this stuff, easy."
Jake folded his arms. "The Yeerks will be watching anything going on with his credit card."
"So we use it somewhere that throws them off the trail, load all the stuff in a rental van, and drive it out to the woods."
Merlyse tilted her head in that way birds do. Jake said, "We'll need some cash, just in case. And Loren to drive. And DNA for human morphs."
Marjorie smiled. "Plenty of us got cash with us we ain't using. And pretty much anybody in the valley would let you acquire us. Go right ahead." She rolled up her sleeve.
Jake and I exchanged a look, shrugged, and acquired her. The steely glint in her eye faded away as she relaxed in the trance. I wondered when the last time she'd relaxed had been.
Which is how I ended up carrying a wallet and a shopping list in bald eagle morph out to Bakersfield. It's a good thing we were flying over the Dry Lands or the birdwatchers would have had a field day.
It was kind of an awkward flight. No one was cheerful after the vote, and I was giving Tobias the silent treatment since he voted no. Childish? Petty? Sure. But he'd left me holding the bag of guilt and self-loathing for voting yes, so he was going to have to live with my pettiness, which I bet gives you way fewer nightmares.
Our first stop was a secondhand clothing store, which unfortunately we had to send Cassie into, because she's the only one of us who can sort of morph real clothing: black tights and a simple blue dress, not something she'd ever wear normally. When she came back into the alley where we'd demorphed, I seized the bags of thrift shop clothes. "Oh my god!" I whisper-screamed through my teeth. "I can't believe you got parachute pants!"
"They're blue," Cassie said with a shrug. "I thought you liked blue."
"I don't like everything blue!" Abineng shifted behind the dumpster he was using as cover.
"Loren," Cassie said, looking skyward, "could you please morph Takuya and find clothes here that fit?"
"Already there," said Loren, in Takuya's slow quiet voice, though without his Japanese accent. It was really strange to hear. "Uh, I'm not sure who should look or turn around right now."
"We're all over it at this point," I said. "Andalites and Hork-Bajir are naked all the time. Whatever."
I helped her try things on until she ended up in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants, and a hideous insect dæmon lanyard from the sixties with a holographic rainbow shell.
"Actually," I said, taking it all in, "I've seen retirees on the beach who dress like this."
"Great," Diamanta said. "Now would you morph again? Abineng's taking up half the space back here."
So Loren went to rent a van with cash, looking just like the description on Takuya's driver's license of a sixty-two-year-old, five foot six man with an earwig dæmon. She drove the van out to the Costco, got out in the parking lot, and said, knowing our raptor ears would hear, "Anyone want to help me shop? I don't think this body is going to be up to carrying sacks of potatoes."
«Me, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie will help,» Jake said. «Ax, Tobias, you keep watch. Let us know if any Controllers show up.»
Nice. Tobias and I were splitting up on Jake's orders. Way easier to keep ignoring him that way.
Cassie and Jake morphed human behind a dumpster, using all the DNA we got from volunteers, while Marco and I morphed into animals to be their dæmons. Marco went gorilla. I closed my eyes and pictured a pony from Cassie's barn I'd acquired at the beginning, when she and I were testing whether this morphing thing was for real. As I morphed, I saw Cassie end up as a black woman built like a brick house, and Jake as a tall mixed guy built like an overcooked noodle.
«You're going to need my help big time, tough guy,» Marco said, wrapping his big hand around one of Jake's skinny biceps.
«Who'd you get those muscles from?» I asked Cassie.
She shrugged. "You can't see it because of all those big sweaters he wears, but Robin is kinda ripped."
Jake put on the stupid blue parachute pants and a tank top, probably just to annoy me, and Cassie put on a loud kaftan. We came out from behind the dumpster looking like the cast of a sitcom about three wacky roommates who each stepped out of a time machine from a different decade. Loren grabbed a giant trolley from the front, flashed a Costco membership card from Uncle Steve's wallet at the greeter, and marched in like a soldier on a mission. "I had to grocery shop on disability for over a decade," she said. "Follow me."
Marco grabbed the shopping list from Loren and squinted at it. «Ew. Why are there so many canned vegetables on this list?»
Cassie snatched it from him and passed it back to Loren. "Do you want to get scurvy? Because no fruits or vegetables is how you get scurvy."
«Sacks of potatoes? Have we gone back to the olden days? What are we even doing here?»
Loren turned sharply into an aisle, forcing us all to follow. Between her teeth, she hissed, "Did you seriously think we were going to get a fifty pack of Hot Pockets? The basics are way cheaper. Cassie, could you load five sacks of rice on here?"
«I know that,» Marco said, glaring at Loren with dark gorilla eyes. Behind him, Cassie loaded rice sacks. «But we don't have the Chee anymore. Who has the time to cook enough potatoes for like thirty people? 'Cause none of us do.»
«Marjorie's been a lunch lady at our school for like ten years,» I said. «She knows what she's doing. And it's not like the people in the valley who aren't Animorphs have a lot to do. My mom is going completely stir-crazy, and I'm pretty sure she's not the only one. I think they need something to do. If it's figuring out how to cook potatoes every day without getting bored of them, then why not! We can't just dump a bunch of people in the middle of nowhere during a war and expect them to sit on their hands like good little kiddies.»
«We don't have time to go on secret trips to Costco every week!»
"That's what we have the training program for," Jake said quietly. Without Merlyse, with this strange thin face, he was hard to read. "It'll be the noncombatants' job to do this kind of thing. We're just filling in the gaps until they're ready."
«Fine,» Marco said. «But we gotta double the amount of peanut butter, that stuff is a lifesaver. And I just saw a sale on sunflower seeds, those are way more filling than you'd think.»
I gave Cassie a look. I'd always had the vague idea that Marco had had to do way too much around the house after his mom died, but I'd never expected him to be a comparison shopper at the grocery store.
Loren waved a hand. "Fine. Stop lecturing me and help me find the good deals. At least we won't have to worry about which ones we're allowed to get on food stamps."
After we loaded everything in the back of the van, Marco and I loaded ourselves in and demorphed. Loren started driving while Cassie and Jake found a place to morph bird and join Ax and Tobias overhead. Marco and I sat on sacks of rice against a wall while Abi stood in a clear space between pallets of canned tomatoes. "So," I said, "did Jake finally ask Cassie out or what?"
Diamanta was so surprised she jerked and whacked Marco across the legs with her tail. "What?"
"Jake and Cassie were out late last night and today neither of them can look me in the eye. You're his best friend. Did he finally grow a pair? Spill."
Marco flushed bright red and wrapped Dia a bunch of times around his neck to try and hide it. "What? I have no idea what Jake did last night! Why would I? I mean, he probably went on some stupid date with Cassie that he'll never admit was a date and they just stared at each other and tried to kiss and totally couldn't because they're losers."
"Holy shit," I said. Ever since Dia settled, using her as a scarf to cover his face has been one of Marco's tells. "Did you see them while you were flying around or something? Was it really bad? Did Jake screw it up?"
"I just said I don't know," Marco said. He picked up a huge pack of vitamins. "I know we're trying to save money, but couldn't we have gotten those Flintstone vitamins? These pills are gonna suck. I'm not taking any unless Nora sneaks one in my – "
"You are being so shifty right now and you know it. You totally saw them. God, it's a good thing Loren bought one of those big rolls of condoms. Can you imagine what kind of weird morphing space STDs we could get? It's a health teacher's nightmare."
"Jake – he – what – " Marco's whole face was having a breakdown, like his lips didn't work anymore.
It is legitimately weird that he's blushing and stuttering instead of making dumb jokes about condoms, Abi said, tilting his head at Marco. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's… jealous? Embarrassed?
Oh. Wow, I thought. Is Marco gay? That would kind of explain a lot. Damn. What am I supposed to say? If he had a crush on Jake and he was getting serious with Cassie now, that kind of sucked for him. But it wasn't like I could say "sorry about your gay crush on my cousin" and break out my jar of limoncello.
"You know what, you're right," I said. "Jake is way too much of a loser to need those. She probably got it for the adults. Maybe she wants to get with Robin now that she knows he's secretly ripped."
"Ew," Marco said. "That's Tobias's mom." But his blush was fading away.
"Hey, she's still got it. I bet she could get a weird forest date if she wanted."
«We're getting close to the national forest,» Loren said in thought-speech. «When the road gets too narrow for the truck I'm gonna pull over so we can unload all the stuff. Get ready to morph.»
«We'll need everyone as rhinos and elephants,» Jake said. «We've gotta carry this stuff the rest of the way in.»
"Pack animals," Marco said. "That's why Elfangor gave us our awesome powers. So we could haul big bags of dried beans through the woods."
"Stop complaining, you big baby," I said. "It'll be good exercise for your rhino morph. Think about how long its DNA has just been sitting around in your blood with nothing to do. Let's do it."
Ax
«Hey, Ax,» Prince Jake said from overhead. «Do you know where Mertil is?»
«No,» I said, still running. Earth grass felt so much thinner and tougher now that I had been reminded of the satisfying lushness of my own world's grass. «He comes to visit me at times of his choosing.»
«We need to find him,» Prince Jake said. «Morph raptor and help me.»
I gave up trying to fill myself on the grass and morphed harrier. I rose up and up from the meadow where I'd been feeding, and circled north toward the ravine.
«Cassie's teaching the morphing class today,» Prince Jake said. I looked north of the ravine and saw Cassie high up in a stand of tall trees with her Hork-Bajir and human students. She gestured widely to the sky and to the ground, then leapt from the tree, starting a morph to osprey even as her hands let go of the branch. Her Hork-Bajir students thumped the tree with their tails; the humans gasped and shrieked. Feathers sprouted from her arms, already spread wide to slow her descent, and a feathered tail sprouted from the base of her spine. Before long, she shot back into the sky unharmed.
«Nothing we do can really make them ready, can it?» Prince Jake said, as we flew onward to the caves and the crash of the waterfall. There was an Andalite term for this particular arrangement of stone and water and tree, but after so long on Earth, it had faded from my memory.
«No,» I said, and wondered whether Escafil had known when she invented her ingenious device how much it would change everyone it touched.
After we reached the northern end of the valley, we circled back south along its eastern edge and found Mertil at the well the Chee had installed, dipping his hoof in a bucket of water. «Mertil,» I told him. «Prince Jake wishes to consult with you.»
Mertil startled, sloshing the water in the bucket. He backed away from it into the shadow of a tree. «Very well.»
We landed in the shade with him and demorphed. Mertil was a soldier, and did not flinch at the sight.
"You know about the Gold Bands, right?" Prince Jake asked Mertil.
«Elgat Kar told me,» he said.
"We have an Andalite ship on our side now," Prince Jake said. "Ax says it's basically an outdated clunker, but it flies. And has Shredder cannons."
«You mean to launch an attack on the Gold Bands' base,» Mertil said. «Has the pilot agreed to this plan?»
"The thing is," Prince Jake said, "I'm not really sure I can trust the pilot. He was tried for cowardice in battle and sent on a suicide mission to infect the Yeerks with a killer virus." Prince Merlyse croaked low in her throat. I pointed a stalk eye at her, and she fixed me with a hard stare. "There is a pilot on our side I think I can trust, though."
«Me?» Mertil rocked back on his hind legs. «I did not come here to fight. I came here for my safety.» For the first time, he held up the stump of his tail, out to the side so we could see it clearly. «Jake and Merlyse, I am not a warrior anymore. I am a vecol.»
«No,» I said, taking a step forward. «You are Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, the greatest fighter pilot of our age. And – » I stopped to consider whether I truly meant what I was about to say, and found that I did. «And there is no reason why losing your tail should change that.»
«You have an intact pilot,» Mertil said, «and you wish me at the helm instead.»
«Yes,» I said. I agreed with Prince Jake. Commander Gonrod was a dangerously unknown quantity, while we knew Mertil to be an experienced ally who had every reason to want to strike back against the Yeerks.
«These dishonorable Andalites who came on the mission,» Mertil said, «will not take instructions from a vecol. They may not come aboard at all if I am at the helm.»
"Then we'll leave them behind," Prince Jake said. "Ax knows how to fly ships, we've seen him do it a bunch of times. We'll take up battle stations or whatever else you need a crew for." On top of Prince Jake's head, Prince Merlyse spread her wings wide, like gray horns or a crown. "We're not the Andalites, Mertil. We're the Guardians of the Galaxy. We do things our way. Say yes."
Mertil's front knees bent. He had no tail to sweep in salute, but there was something dignified and unconquerable in him. «Yes, Prince Jake.»
"Are you sure no one can see us?" Marco said at the battle station of the bridge of the Ralek River. "It feels so weird to be flying around Santa Barbara in a spaceship. Like maybe we should make the local news."
"The Gold Bands can probably see us," Prince Jake said. "This ship'll have hrala all over it, and the Andalites probably didn't have that in mind when they came up with their cloaking technology."
«The particle is of focused but esoteric interest among Andalites, much as the particle you call the Higgs boson is for humans. We discovered both about fifty of your years ago.»
Prince Jake rolled his eyes. "You know it's okay if the Hork-Bajir know more about something than you, right? Not all of us can be hrala experts."
"So you're saying the people we're surprise attacking can see us coming," Marco said. "And this is our great plan?"
«I will come in low so their line of sight is blocked by the treeline,» Mertil said, with an undercurrent of hard-won patience.
"What do you think Estrid, Gonrod, and Aloth are doing out in the woods right now?" Marco said, twirling the end of Diamanta's tail around his fingers. "Shit-talking us? Complaining about the grass?"
They had been as disdainful of Mertil as he had predicted, after the initial shock of learning that he was alive and terribly mutilated. Then they had been disdainful of me, for not only had I trusted humans over them, I had trusted a vecol over them. I made no justifications for myself. I owed nothing to the likes of them.
The comms panel on the bridge blinked, and I rushed to answer the call. One of the greatest assets provided by the Ralek River was the crewmembers' personal communicators, though they could only be activated with thought-speech input. I opened a channel. «Report.»
«Wow, I feel so official when you say stuff like that,» Rachel said. «Anyway, Toby says we're in position. Just waiting for you to bust this place wide open. Though heads up, there are a couple of Bug fighters parked out here. Not as big as your ship, but they could put up a fight.»
«And call for backup,» Tobias added, «which is something we definitely can't do.»
«Noted,» I said. «Closing channel.»
"We'd better fire on the Bug fighters first thing," Prince Jake said. "That's the most serious threat to the Ralek River."
"Dibs on weapons!" Marco said.
«I will take the weapons station,» I said. «You have no experience on an Andalite ship.» I had shown them the basics before takeoff in case of an emergency, but I would feel much safer with just Mertil and myself at the helm.
"I've watched you do it," Marco said. "And I rock at video games. Right, Jake?"
Merlyse flew past Diamanta, flicking her across the nose with her tail. "That's what you tell yourself when I kick your ass," Prince Jake said. "Ax, you take weapons. Mertil, ready when you are."
Mertil suddenly took the ship very low, so it felt as if we must be clearing the canopies clean off the trees, but we did not. We must have been passing only through their upper leaves, like a wind. It was breathtaking to watch through the viewscreen. I had read about Mertil, and seen holos of his flight performance, but it was altogether different to be on board a ship with him at the helm. He was so connected with the ship, watching it not only with his eyes but with flicks of his ears and constant delicate brushes of his fingers along the controls.
«Get ready, Aximili,» he said. «We will be within sight in three… two…»
We broke the treeline. Our low angle meant that we had been hard for the Gold Bands to spot, but it also meant that we had had no vantage point from which to survey the site. I saw the Bug fighters at the same time they must have seen us. But we had known what to expect. I aimed and fired.
TSSSEEEWWW! The back half of the Bug fighter I targeted had melted into smoking slag. The other Bug fighter powered up and lifted away, avoiding my next shot. I distantly registered that Toby, her warriors, and the other Animorphs were rushing into the fray on the ground below. The remaining intact Bug fighter fired, and Mertil twisted the Ralek River like an eel to evade. I tried to return fire, but with our own ship moving so unpredictably, I couldn't make my shots. They went wide and struck the buildings of the training facility, flushing their occupants out into the open.
The comms station blinked. I had no time for it, but it could be an important message from the ground assault team. «Answer it!» I cried, hoping Marco or Prince Jake would remember what I had shown them.
Marco staggered toward the comms station as the Ralek River bobbed and weaved. I was nowhere near good enough to keep up with Mertil's aerial tactics, but I fired all I could, if only as a deterrent. The channel opened. It was video as well as thought-speech. A holographic window opened up in front of the many holographic overlays surrounding me and Mertil. It was the face of Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. But it was not the warrior's presence animating that powerful frame. «Andalites! Which one of you killed Alloran-Semitur-Corass?»
Mertil's pale brown eyes blazed with fury. He stooped in a fierce dive toward the Bug fighter, too fast. Behind me, Marco and Prince Jake screamed and held on. I jerked the Shredder cannons around and fired. TSEEEWWWW! An engine nacelle disappeared, staggering the fighter. Just then, when we were screaming toward the ground, far too close, Mertil pulled the Ralek River out of the dive and over the roof of the training facility. The ship groaned as its belly scraped the roof. When I was finally able to think again, I said to Visser Five, «What does it matter? Alloran was nothing but a tool to you.»
Gafinilan's face radiated Visser Five's menacing djafid. The Yeerk had clearly not forgotten the skill he'd learned from Alloran in his new Andalite host body. It was different now, though, with Gafinilan's mental voice behind it. There was something deep and slow and weary about it. It seemed to enrage Mertil, whose stump twitched against his hind legs. I wondered how long he could keep piloting under the mental strain. I would have to tell Marco to close the channel. Except getting Visser Five to talk was the best way to stall him. Why wasn't Prince Jake saying anything?
«Alloran was everything to me,» Visser Five raged. «He was my gateway into a glorious new life!»
I fired on a fleet of trucks sitting outside the facility. «None of us killed Alloran-Semitur-Corass! You did, when you separated him from Henga Sholeth!»
Visser Five's dark, cruel djafid seemed to swell through the thought-speech channel, choking up the bridge. Mertil sent the Ralek River careening into the sky and stomped his forehoof hard on the deck. He roared at Visser Five, «BE QUIET!» and countered with the most exquisite and overwhelming djafid I had ever experienced.
It was a bleak gray landscape of despair, vast and horizonless, with wildfires raging across it. It burned everything to ash, and from the ash grew love and hope and righteous conviction, as riotous and thorn-tangled and unconquerable as the depths of the Untamed Wilds. It sounded like Mertil reaching past the holographic display, past the bulkheads and empty air and Dracon fire separating him and Gafinilan, past the barriers of skin and bone and the Yeerk itself, straight to the core of his shorm, and saying, Nothing will stop me from coming to save you.
Gafinilan's eyes widened. It seemed that while Visser Five was fond of using djafid as a tool to intimidate everyone around him, he did not like it so much when he was on the receiving end. He cut the channel.
"Mertil, we have to go," Prince Jake said urgently. "Visser Five is probably calling for backup right now. And now the Gold Bands know to look for us. If the Ralek River gets damaged, our whole plan to make this weapon is out the window."
The comms station blinked again. Mertil let his djafid fade away, and slumped with the loss of it. Moving like a very old Andalite, he turned the ship around and flew away at top speed, taking the ship into evasive maneuvers to throw off any ship that might be watching.
Marco opened up comms. He couldn't respond, though, since he was not in morph. «Report,» I said tersely.
«We're clearing out,» Rachel said. «We grabbed as many as we could get. Not enough. There's still plenty of Gold Bands out there to teach other Hork-Bajir-Controllers how to do their thing.»
«That is all we could have expected to accomplish,» I said, though it weighed as heavily on me as it must have on her.
Eventually, after an exhausting end-run around Santa Barbara to be sure we were not pursued, Mertil landed the Ralek River where it had been, at the site of my former scoop. When he did, he was clearly reluctant to emerge from the ship again. I could understand. After what I had seen, the thought of the other Andalites' revulsion toward Mertil scoured me. I could not imagine how to face it, or how to defend him from it. After Marco and Prince Jake stepped off the ship, I joined Mertil in his pretense of checking the bridge systems.
«Will you do the revenge ritual with me?» Mertil asked, after a long period of silent coordination at the helm.
«No,» I said. «Gafinilan is not dead. There is hope.»
«He will be,» Mertil said. «Soon.»
I didn't want to tell him that Visser Five would certainly trap him in morph as another Andalite, even if it was not what Gafinilan would have chosen. In any case, he must have known. It was still true that Gafinilan would almost certainly be dead soon, one way or another. So instead, I said, «It does not help.»
«What?»
«The revenge ritual. It does not help. I performed the ritual after I learned of Elfangor's death. It has been years, and I have not had my revenge. By now, I do not believe I will. Nor am I certain that I should. The quest for revenge brings no satisfaction. And perhaps – perhaps I have learned other ways to live with the loss.»
Mertil's main eyes met mine. «You speak of the Hork-Bajir.»
«Yes. They have all lost more than either of us can understand. Yet they are not driven by revenge. They fight the Yeerks as fiercely as any of us. But I think they are able to see past revenge, to something like justice. So do not ask me for a revenge ritual, Mertil. If you must have something to guide you through this terrible time – perhaps you should ask Elgat Kar.»
With that, I left the ship. Estrid was lingering nearby, clearly eager to return. «Give Mertil space to go,» I said. «He is a vecol in seclusion.»
«He let you in there with him,» Estrid said.
«The seclusion only applies to his fellow Andalites. Didn't you say it yourself? I am a traitor. Now go.»
Estrid left. I stood outside the ship and waited for Mertil. He would have a long run back to Kref Magh, and he would not have to do it alone.