Chapter 2
Tobias was gliding on the air during a school day before the start of summer, enjoying the breeze through his feathers by a deserted stretch of beach when he heard the voices. One female and three males conversing quietly. The older male was complaining about the sand getting into his shoes when the conversation turned that made Tobias almost lose control of the hawk and that hasn't happened for ages.
"Carter, why do we have to scout the beach first? I'm getting sand in my sandals and I'm cold." It was not cold at all. "I mean you and Lee narrowed down the slug town to" The brown gray spotted haired man with the baseball cap waved his arms around. Tobias could tell he was military as with whoever Carter was. The large black man could possibly a soldier as well but, he wasn't sure. He only had old movies to go on.
"O'Neill, isn't sandals getting sand in them a part of the human experience? I am enjoying it and it's Yeerks not slugs." The large black man with a baseball cap on his head interrupted.
"Teal'c, I mean Murray sand everywhere is not on my list of things to do. We can't say Yeerks or people who are infest will know what we are doing here or at least our cover of innocent people going on vacation will be up in flames." O'Neill continued as 'Murray' opened his mouth. "Not literally in flames it means people will know what we are really doing here. That would be bad."
"Indeed O'Neill. Jackson any progress?" The young man who had his head in a notebook that he shared with the lone blonde female, looked up at the call. Tobias almost dived but corrected his course. It was like looking at a future him, if he wasn't a hawk. He took a closer look and amend his statement. For one he didn't have glasses and his hair wasn't that brown. But the overall sad but now happy personality that was him before and after he became a hawk. Kind of, maybe. Either way he felt a kindred spirit with this Jackson.
"No, no more progress on deciphering the Andalites language. I hope we find some soon. It might be our missing link to the Furling. Heck maybe they are even related somehow. Anyway, Sam found something interesting that screams cult in action or at least controlled by aliens." Jackson looked like nothing special, but a very bright person if he could try and crack the Andalite language.
It was Tobias's heritage and he was having trouble with it at times when Ax could teach him about his dad's culture.
Sam, the female started to talk about the Sharing and with that Tobias winged his way toward town. He had something to report to Jack and Ax, something important. He squashed down the flicker of hope, something that might end the war. Allies.
He landed at Cassie's barn just as Marco came in claiming to hear new rumors online about a potential new sci-fi show that let people go to different planets by wormholes but was lingering in developmental hell because it sounded so outlandish. The man who came up with the ideas was really wacky or so Marco exclaimed. Or at least was really really high all the time. He had some strange ideas.
'Even if people could travel by wormholes, Andalite technology is far superior.' Ax's morph came in and started switch back to his Andalite body, his mental voice unaffected by the process. It wasn't the time or place to play with mouth sounds. Delightful as they are.
"Or Andalites couldn't remember how to work the wormholes technology." Marco suggested, half teasing. His eyes were haunted.
Only Tobias could recognize Ax's hoof shuffle as embarrassment. Before he could say anything even in private speak, Jake spoke up.
"Any news anyone? Someone? It's been way too quiet around here. Not that I don't appreciated the extra sleep, studying and free time." The last week and half nothing of note to report from anyone, until now.
Tobias went and landed on Rachel's shoulder, who stroked him. 'I have something, Ax does the word Furlings mean anything to you?"
All of Ax's eyes widen as he stared at Tobias. 'How did you come across that name? It's the oldest word for our species that we know. It's only in the history books. Ancient history books,' He shot a look towards Marco with one of his eye stalks. 'Along with the wormhole theory. That knowledge was discontinued.'
"Andalites discontinued the wormhole theory for Z-space because it messed with the morphing process as it was being introduced and you lost the use of it?" Cassie took a wild guess based on her continuing studies of Andalite biology.
She was tending to a injured pregnant mare before a meeting once, and Ax wondered how the mating of the horses differ from the other species of Earth since a horse was the closest to a Andalite body that he could tell. Cassie asked for more details for a better picture to relate the differences but Ax clammed up as more people came in.
The topic was forgotten until Ax got sick and she argued her way into Ax teaching her everything that he could recall after he was cured so at least someone would be better prepared next time anything happened to Ax. They were now on air born illnesses in her lessons.
'Yes Cassie, as you know from your studies of the Andalite body the morphing technology didn't react well to a wormhole, which is probably why the Yeerks don't know about them. As a species that tends to take over people's brains, they aren't very smart at times. Visser Three and possibly Visser One don't want to attract undo attention to their conquest of Earth less other species got into their way. We do have a wormhole device on our planet but we don't know how to use it. The last time we did so was when our species was called the Furlings but that was many, many, many centuries ago.' Ax had one of his eyes on Cassie, the other on Tobias and the last one Jake as he explained why his species used Z-space instead of the wormholes.
Before Jake could say something, Marco interject with a hurt tone in his voice, "What do you mean lessons Cassie?" He smiled with a bit of a leer at her, "You learning about how Andalites do it? I mean compared to our sex education classes it was probably more of a eye opener. Am I right?" Marco didn't really care much about ancient history but the opening for a joke, even a poorly one was needed before Ax went on for hours about his species superiority. He did do that once. After six root beer floats with dark chocolate ice cream.
Jake opened his mouth again to say something, but Cassie's calm soothing voice stopped him. "Oh, we finished those studies last week. We're on to airborne illnesses. You can join me if you like. You just have to read through my three notebooks of what I learned so far. Ax?" Cassie turned from staring Marco in the eyes to Ax.
'I'll gladly have another interested student of my species. I must warn you that Cassie has tiny handwriting.' Ax knew that Marco was joking but Prince Jake seemed to really want to say something and he had to stop this from snowballing. It had the resulted that was needed.
As Marco shook his head hard in no, Jake filled the silence after Rachel and Tobias chuckles finished. "What other species would want to conquer Earth besides the Yeerks?"
Ax shuffled his hoofs again. "My ancestors encountered them before we knew of the Yeerks. The species name is lost to us. But some details are still known in the history department of our world. They use wormholes to travel, that's another reason why we stopped using the it, the stone circle gate. As a species we can't be infected by this snake finned creatures since they don't know of us, but when we.' Ax stopped talking. His mental voice was shaking. But not with hatred as when he spoke of the enslaved Andalite that took his brother's life, but with fear, terrible fear.
After staring at Tobias to give himself strength to remind himself that a part of his brother lived on, Ax continued in a clipped voice. 'My brother, Elfangor before he became a Aristh, he fancied himself a scholar of ancient history. He wondered if Seerow's Kindness was the first law that make technology sharing forbidden or anything of that sort' Ax closed his eyes, sighed deeply and continued.
'The Escafil device, wasn't always a device, it was a plant that Dr. Escafil used to morph with, that is his ancestors did. The technology wasn't there yet. The plant was found on a small outpost at the very edge of our section of the galaxy, which was named Escafil after the clan that found the plant. It was brought back to our planet and was seeded successfully but it wasn't known for the morphing abilities until much much later. It was just a mood changer of sorts, but not to the Andalites that lived on Escafil full time.'
Ax knew his explaining was uneven but he couldn't say it twice in a more rational form. 'The outpost was still used at the time because the Furlings/Andalites still used the stone circle gate that was located there. As you know Cassie, you're a estreen. A morpher that is beautiful when changing shape. There use to be a lot more of them a long time ago, not just random as it is now. Escafil was filled with them, in fact it was a small town of Furlings or as you know as Andalites. They had cut off almost all ties to the Andalite home world, which in hindsight was a blessing. Since this Escafil's community lived on the planet that the plant came from they instinctively over time figured out how to use it naturally to morph. They were working on a different method for the Andalites to use on the home planet.
According to Elfangor who had help from an old Andalite, from the record logs he that came from the shuttle that fled the outpost which was home to Escafil's young ancestor, a talented Furling went and used the stone circle gate. When he came back he wasn't alone. At first the Andalite was acting normally but then suddenly all of his eyes started to glow and he spoke in a strange mental voice. The other Andalites noticed he had a strange scar wound on the back of his head. He said he was a servant of Ra, and the Andalites will serve or die. He declared he would bring back glory to his Pharaoh. A group of strange beings in some sort of armor came through before the gate shut.'
Ax paused again as his human companions-in-arms eyes widened. They knew about Ra, they studied him in school. Ax didn't even connect the evidence until the term Furlings came up. He started again before they could start asking questions.
As he continued to talk, Rachel's eyes grew harder, not noticing the blood that was bleeding from her shoulder where Tobias gripping her so hard. Cassie's face was ashed, her mind connecting as fast as Prince Jake's was, and Marco was completely silent but his hands were shaking.
'When the shuttle came to the home planet after masking it's trail so no one could follow, the military sent a fleet to the out post arriving a few weeks after the shuttle left, about two months had passed by then. Everyone was dead, the stone circle gate was missing it's well you would say keyboard to open it, or at least it looked that way. The red crystal was completely shattered, the Andalites that surround it died first or at least that's what the decaying indicated. They didn't want anything else to come through, even if they enjoyed exploring through it. According to our fleet logs, in our section of the galaxy and we looked well after that, it was the only gate around.
Some how, some way, the Furling/Andalite that came out of the wormhole was still alive and morphing rapidly as if whatever made him declare war was trying to get out into a new body that wasn't dying. He finally morphed into something that had a mouth and a snake like finned creature crawled out. It gave a cry and suddenly the corpses of the enemies was moving.' Ax's eyes were distant. 'There were six other creatures in those bodies. The soldiers that came down killed them all. The creatures weren't as fast as our tail blades. As the arrogant Andalite lay dying he told his people what happened to him and how to stop more from coming through. This was centuries before Seerow's Kindness. But it made the Andalites more wary of doing anything outside our species in case they in countered something like that snake fin creature again. Then Seerow who didn't study history found the Yeerks.'
Cassie had the sense of mind to notice the dripping of blood on the floor during Ax's talk, so she grabbed the first aid kit they had for injuries and gently got Tobias to let go. He flew up to the raters and gripped the wood until it creaked. His eyes were still fixed on Ax's main stalks in support. Rachel's wound was deep, but easily cleaned, stitched and bandaged. Jake's hands were clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. Marco looked to be deeply thinking.
'Elfangor wondered why the creature didn't just get out the way it got in, but the guess is that the Andalite fought back in every morph until it had to give up and go through the mouth. The outpost was abandoned, the stone circle gate buried in such a way that no one else could come through in or out, but it would not work unless you typed in another symbol that only a few of us know if they dug into history that far as a reward. Elfangor passed that knowledge off to me just after he left as a birthday present. He had a weird sense of humor sometimes. Thankfully the host of Vesser 3 didn't care too much about history. Elfangor told me that there were only less then ten Andalites that knew the extra code to the gate. It was kept buried and secret for a reason. As you know Seerow discovered the Yeerks and pitied the Yeerks. We couldn't fight two battles so it was forgotten but for a few old historians and the others who loved ancient, ancient history.'
Ax paused. Marco beat out anyone else to blurt out, "Please don't tell me the guards or soldiers or whatever that came through were human."
Ax just nodded in confirmation and the room started to fill with almost raised voices. They still had the sense to keep quiet to listen if Cassie's parents would come by.
"Fuck, just fuck." Marco's eyes darkened.
"What do you mean they were human?" Cassie's asked. It was a good thing she was done sewing up Rachel and not put another wound in her from shock.
Rachel just stared at Jake. "What's the plan? Where are these creatures?"
Jake was looking sick. "We can't fight a war on two fronts. We are stretched as it is. We're barely holding on as it is." Cassie laid a hand on his shoulder in comfort. Jake squeezed her hand tightly.
'In that case I have good news.' Tobias mental voice cut through the panic.
Rachel glanced at him. "Good news?" Her pain meds were kicking in that Cassie gave her so there wasn't a hurt tone in her voice, just a question. "How so? The people you got the term Furling from?"
'Yes.'
Tobias gave a quick explanation of the group that was on the beach that afternoon and what they were talking about. After a quick tossing out ideas, Jake gave out his orders, relieved to do something, and everyone scattered in response.
Tobias and Rachel left to keep an eye out for the potential allies as birds, and see if they can spot where they were staying. If so Tobias would keep watch, Rachel had a family dinner with Jake's family that night.
Jake and Marco went to see if they could get any information about Ra and the rumors of the wormhole extreme tv show had any "truth" from it. They also decided it was best to look up Jackson and the other names as well to see what else tied together.
Cassie was surprised that Ax was lingering. "Why are you still here?" She thought he was going to go with Tobias and Rachel. She had things to do at the farm so she stayed.
'It is usually our custom to go over Andalite biology after meetings if we are not needed else where.'
Cassie nodded and went to get her notebooks knowing that Ax needed something to distract him from the last meeting. Honestly so did she. Chores could wait.
'Instead of airborne illnesses, I thought telling you about a Andalite welcoming we do for each birth. We haven't discussed the pregnancy afterbirth right?' Ax knew that they had but it was a good topic to discuss. Life not death.
"Nope. What's the first thing?" Cassie clicked her pen and waited.