Chapter 6

Professor Henry McClellan aka Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad former fighter pilot of the Andalite Military was taking a very rare vacation for himself. His Shorm (best friend), Mertil-Iscar-Elmand urged him to go and spend time outside of his duties to himself and his income making. Mertil dryly pointed out if he couldn't go anywhere as he couldn't, due to his allergy to the morphing technology, Gaffinilan should and bring back some good memories to share. So in spite of himself, Gaffinilan went.

Admittedly the four day vacation in the nearby forest park did him some good and he was happy to stretch his Andalite legs since he hadn't run or been in his natural form for quite sometime outside of his dwelling. Bickering voices made him slow down and wish for some sort of weapon. His tail blade was well and good but his natural form screamed alien. For Mertil's well being, he had to keep a low profile, so just in case he morphed back into his human for and quickly got dressed before nosily making his way toward the human voices.

The humans paused in their conversation and turned towards the young dark skinned, buzz cut, professor looking man who was carrying a black backpack along with a hiking stick. "Don't tell me you're lost." Gaffinilan said amused as the military older couple exchanged quick glances as the three younger ones who by their bone structure seemed to be related.

"Sadly yes. We were on a hiking trip with the Sharing and someone had to stop and see the sights. I am Tom, this is my cousin Rachel and my younger brother Jake. " Tom's Yeerk was very annoyed. He was hoping to snag the military couple who had come to his house for hosts, he had a Dracon beam on him, but it was modified to knock out people on different setting as killing them slowly wouldn't be beneficial to his plans. But if his plan didn't work well that'll work just fine.

The rest of his group quickly introduced themselves as the newcomer seemed interested in the adults more then the younger set. At least he seemed interested in Sam as Jack somehow had a yo-yo and was playing with it.

"I am Professor Henry McClellan." At that the blonde woman who introduced herself as Sam Carter, lit up and asked, "The professor who wrote that paper on how electrical engineering could change the future? That professor?" Gaffinilan nodded wary as the name Sam Carter rang a faint bell in the back of his mind.

Jack held back a groan as Sam quickly got into a heated argument with Professor McClellan, who to his credit after being taken back quickly got into the spirit of things and was talking patiently as he guided them towards the hiking trail which was quite a ways away. As the day went on, after a few hours before and after lunch, the hiking group slowly dropped down to just a few instead of the twenty-five strong that started out.

Marco was the eye in the sky since Tobias wasn't available. Cassie were the second to drop out after Phil and Murray left, along with a few teenagers who got in trouble for goofing off and had to be lead back with a few adults to the staging area.

In reality, the Animorphs were covering and searching for Daniel while the Sharing had split up some to go feed and others to search the woods for the so called spotting of the Andalite a few days before. According to Teal'c information Daniel was deep in the woods and quite a ways from the hiking trail. Usually Jack and Sam wouldn't get lost but Tom was all kinds of distracting and a constant twitch took up resistance in Jack's gun hand.

Tom slowly but carefully eased his way to the back of the group and waited for a good time to take out his targets. His hands kept shaking and jerking away from his Dracon beam as the real Tom fought to keep him from hurting his little brother or anyone else.

There was a point were Tom had the perfect opportunity to shoot, but just as his hand pulled the trigger, it jerked so the shot went wide and abetted into a tree instead. Tom's eyes could only widen for a second before Jack's zap blast knocked him off his feet into the dirt, quite a few paces away from the hiking trail.

"Dang it sir." Sam moved towards were Tom was to check his vitals, but paused as two impossible things happened. One, the body jerked, so Jack shot Tom again then a slug like creature oozed out of his right ear and curled onto itself as it died, and two, Jake pushed her away as he slapped his brother away, impossible hope shinning out of his eyes.

"Tom?" Jake asked, not caring that his voice was breaking or that everyone knew about the Yeerks or possible their cover was blown.

Tom's blue eyes blinked opened as he tried to sit up, but only could with his brother's help. "J, Jake?" His voice was rusty and his eyes involuntarily swelled with tears.

"Tom." Jake almost cried.

Everyone was startled when they heard a voice in their heads. 'How did you know about the Yeerk in that human's head? Who are you all? That's not any kind of technology I know of.' Everyone's head turned towards the narrow eyed professor who had rapidly turned into a pissed of Andalite who had Rachel as a hostage with his tail-blade on her throat. 'Tell me now or the tail blade of Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad will end this human's life.' No one had been paying attention to the Professor as what happened to Tom had caught everyone's notice.

***

Janet was slowly opening, closing her eyes, moving her fingers, doing everything a person who didn't have control of her body could do. Janet was stretching her arms over her head when she caught sight of Cassie and a huge smile lit up her face.

Cassie slammed her body against her mom's and started to cry. Janet lifted her hand to her daughter's head and strokes it murmuring words of comfort.

"You're really back. I knew something was off, but I just couldn't see what was off." Cassie said once her tears were spend.

"You could tell?" Janet said.

"Please, it took a while but I noticed that there slight differences between you and that slug that had taken over your body, but I wasn't sure what it was. It just at times you seemed to care more deeply about me then others. I started to keep track, it seemed like it was every other week but"

"It was every three days. My smart loving daughter. The Yeerk, though slug is a good word to use, had to maintain his 'Janet' disguise but at the times were I could be completely myself, I used it and you noticed. I was hoping to get a change to strike back but," Janet's voice turned dry. "Ironically it was Senator Kinsey who helped with that. It was a educated guess, one that I thought before, but I never tried it because it could have gone very wrong. I'm thankful it didn't."

The next half hour Janet got acquainted with her daughter all over again while asking and answering questions that her nurses and the man who stepped into her role until she was cleared for duty since she had been held captive for years.

Senator Kinsey stepped into Janet's recovery room just after Cassie left with a hopeful expression on her tear tracked face.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Janet held up her hand when he tried to speak. "Let's just call ourselves even Senator. I saved your life and you saved mine. You are staying for my debriefing?"

"I can agree to that. Yes." Robert Kinsey nodded to the woman who freed him and left to get some good coffee, not the stuff that his slug/Yeerk thought was good. Ugh. He couldn't wait to get some good coffee.