Chapter 7

I hid away in a corner for the journey back to Enrich. With my small body, I could so easily disappear and lock myself away from the adversity that flowed freely elsewhere. I blended in, silent as a feather, but I could hear absolutely everything. The accusations, the insults, the comebacks. It was a sick, humorless sitcom, and my friends were the reluctant antagonists. With Surote out of action, Arkv was in charge, and he didn't hold the same professional restraints as his robotic master. He bore into the others like the prosecution of a murder trial, and the rest of Team Hook were enthusiastic, angry cheerleaders.

I wanted away from it, but there was no escape from the cramped compartment - a cramped compartment with nine unconscious Yeerk hosts strewn around like Christmas ornaments. A pitiful nine out of what I could only assume was far more than the eighty-or-so predicted.

Kids… We couldn't save the Human, either.

I started to side with Arkv. I blamed myself. The others took my share of the blame for me, but I couldn't bring myself to emerge from my shadow. I simply couldn't. Their stares were darkness, their voices a choir.

They took every last drop of it, every degrading syllable, with only the tamest responses. Their restraint was unbelievable, but the damage would only be stored like fuel to a pressure cooker.

The torment would eventually subside when Team Hook had had their say. The pilot announced the instantaneous transit through space and our descent back to Enrich's shelter, and the sounds of docking overrode everything else. Arkv delegated tasks to the rest of Team Hook and saved the most embarrassing for us.

"Take Surote to the laboratory," he ordered. "And explain what happened. You are dismissed."

Surote was in pieces. An overload in his system had caused his core to burst. A flaw in his build, but fortunately, the fail-safes had kept his head – and the Yeerk inside – intact. His pieces had been placed inside lightweight boxes, ready for moving, and one by one, my friends took them with straining arms. Four boxes. Not enough for me. I morphed, anyway. With the strength of a Hork-Bajir, I took the heaviest box without struggle. I wouldn't excuse myself from the punishment as I had aboard the transporter.

We took Surote up three decks and to the laboratory, a place we had visited before. We were permitted into the reinforced doors and endured the walk of shame through the vast corridor that branched into busy workstations. Not a question was asked of us, but the eyes provided more than enough answers. We escaped nobody because the robotics section was right at the back of the laboratory. It was a separated, white-walled shelter nestled beneath the blackened backdrop, the entrance a subtle hole at the side that our boxes could barely fit through. Midway through the process of shuffling them inside, a familiar set of hooves stomped over.

((W-what is… You…)) Asaccah stuttered. He wore a thin, protective red coat over his front and a magnifying eyepiece over his right main eye, distorting it to disturbing proportions. He was the last person we wanted to encounter, but our luck had seemingly abandoned us.

Marco dropped his box with an unwise thud. The others and I placed them down with somewhat more care. Jake, as per usual, was left to explain to the bewildered Andalite. "He had some kind of overload. Arkv said he should be okay."

((Of course, he would be!)) Asaccah screeched wildly, displaying the composure of a leaf in a storm. He hurried to the boxes and rummaged through, pulling out the motionless robot head past a piece of torso and an arm. ((There you are…)) he cooed wistfully. ((It's okay. It's okay… We'll get you fixed.))

Jake was struggling for anything to say, perturbed by Asaccah's bizarre emotional display, clutching the dismembered head like a dying child, forelegs kneeling with grief on the floor. "You, uh… You can fix him?"

((Of course, I can!)) he burst, switching like a lightbulb. ((Foolish Humans! What happened out there?!))

"We got ambushed," Jake said. "Things got messy. We all managed to get out and took some Yeerks with us."

Asaccah was immediately suspicious. ((How many?))

"Nine."

((Nine?!)) he burst. ((Out of an estimated eighty-seven?!))

Jake explained further. "The building exploded when toxic gas hit a bunch of compressed air capsules. The whole place is covered in the gas. We rescued what we could."

Asaccah was furious, his balled-up fists shaking and his weedy tail twitching. He almost dropped Surote's head but retained enough awareness to stop it slipping from his grasp. ((I assure you, Humans, that I'll be conducting a full investigation into this! I will receive my reports from Arkv and Fruyt and make adjustments accordingly… after I've undone this damage.)) A fist uncurled and soothed Surote's skull.

"We did what we could," Jake asserted, an attempt to bypass Asaccah's emotional reaction.

((You will report to the debrief station,)) he seethed. ((And you will wait there until I have spoken to you again. Be prepared to wait for some time. Now get out!))

We left it at that, petrified by his impulsiveness. Slowly, we crept back out of the sheltered zone, watching as Asaccah continued to caress Surote's remnants while screaming at his assistants to prepare various tools. He vanished behind a white wall, and we exhaled.

"How long will we have to put up with this shit?" Marco whispered in Jake's direction, almost accusingly.

"As long as it takes to get what we want," he whispered back.

"So never," Marco replied.

"Not now, man. Not now. I'm not in the mood."