Teknomorphs 5: No Longer Alone

by Cyblade Silver

Finding himself with another unexpected ally - the last person he'd ever have expected - Gunnar finds himself feeling better about his situation. Meanwhile, a plan that Cassie, Marco and the other Animorphs made up almost on a whim goes wrong in a way no one could expect.

4. Conspirators

As he and Gunnar made their slow way back to the Radam's base, Saber made a point of asking Gunnar just what they were going to do now. The consensus turned out to be something that Cain hadn't been particularly good at, but that Saber was getting better at: wait and see; move only when they had a better handle on the situation, and don't let anyone else know that there was anything more to their interactions then just Guide and First Lieutenant. He ended up being the one to suggest that they limit their physical interactions to when they were assigned to work together by Darkon himself.

It wouldn't be good for either of their health if he found out that his two highest-ranked soldiers weren't precisely loyal to him.

In fact, the best thing that they could hope for, if Darkon found out about them, was to be killed quickly and with a minimum of torture. Of course, both of them knew better at this point than to hope for that kind of mercy. It was far more likely that they would be re-brainwashed, then sent to hunt down his father, his older twin, and his little sister.

There were times that Saber honestly envied Ness and Shara, wherever they were, and whatever names they were using now. At least those two had been given the chance, however it had come about, to make a new life for themselves. It might not have been the kind of life they had had before, but it was more of one than he and Gunnar had now.

He was sure of that, at least.

As they started back toward Darkon's lair, splitting up halfway so no one would come to suspect them of conspiring together – or, at least to make it harder for anyone who might do so – Saber worked to hide the revelations he'd just been made privy to. It was a bit more difficult than just blocking Darkon out of his mind. If the Warlord was blocked, he would start to wonder why, and that would most likely lead to him tearing through Saber's mind in a search for answers.

The key to hiding something from Darkon was to bury it under mundane, boring surface thoughts, hiding it so it didn't seem like anything was hidden in the first place; Darkon had to be made to think that he had no secrets, or else he would go looking for them.

And, if that happened, there would be nothing that he or Gunnar could do to keep him from finding what he sought.