Author's Note: Written by Samaru163 and Tricondon.
Chapter 2
Rachel
I had a hard time focusing in school the next day. Thinking about a mission that we had planned always managed to distract me. It didn’t help that math never really excited me even before all this alien invasion stuff started anyways. I mean, who can understand this X=Y stuff? Well, Ax probably could, but I never really cared for it. Best to concentrate on the task at hand anyway.
It seemed like the day stretched on and on, as it always did on these kinds of days, but finally the end-of-class bell rang and I shot out of class like a missile. I met up with Cassie just outside the front door, and we began the hike over to her barn. We talked about boring things, you know, like who was getting cuter, maybe getting together to work on our homework, plus I tried to hint to her about getting some proper clothes. Again. But that girl is as stubborn as most of the animals she cared for when it comes to my amazing fashion suggestions.
We arrived at Cassie’s house and headed inside, dropping our stuff in her room. She figured it would still be some time before Jake and Marco showed up, since we did try to keep our meetings secret, and the boys would be taking a more roundabout way. So we decided to kill time by doing some math homework. Cassie’s mom poked her head in to say hi, but didn’t have too long to chat. She had to go to the Gardens, our town’s zoo/amusement park, to see the delivery of a new antelope.
It wasn’t long after she left before we heard the doorbell go off. Cassie headed downstairs and returned shortly after with Jake and Marco trailing behind. Marco had one of his usual dorky grins plastered on his face, while Jake just seemed somber. “So what’s up with you two?” I asked.
“Ah Jake’s just upset because he lost a little contest we had in the way over,” Marco said. While that may have been true, I could tell that something else was eating at Jake.
“You sure you’re alright, Jake?” Cassie asked. At the sound of her voice, Jake seemed to snap out of his thoughts. He gave an unconvincing grin.
“Yeah, just thinking, that's all.” Cassie was about to protest when a tapping sound came from her window. We all turned to see a hawk pecking at the glass. I sighed and opened the window.
“Hey, Tobias. Back from your daily hunt?” Marco quipped.
<Yeah, not too good of a day though. But I was able to check out the spaceships.>
“And?” Cassie inquired.
“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Marco interrupted. “They’re just sitting out there in the open? No hangers, no underground facility?”
<Nope. It’s like what Erek said; they’re just in the mountains with a nice battalion of guards between standing in our way.>
Marco threw his hands into the air. “Alright, this is definitely one hundred and fifty percent a trap.”
“We all knew that from the beginning, Marco,” I said. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that we need to intervene.”
Jake nodded slowly. “Tobias, how long would it take us to fly there?”
<Took me at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half.>
“Alright, then, Tobias go get Ax. Everyone else, let’s get going, ” Jake commanded.
Everyone else headed outside before me, but I stayed behind for a moment to close the window after Tobias flew out. By the time I made it outside they had all stripped down to their morphing outfits. See the one flaw with morphing, aside from the whole stuck in morph deal, is that you can only morph skin tight clothing. So I was forced to give up my matching shirt and jeans for my black leotard.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my chosen bird of prey, a bald eagle. I could feel my bones as they began to hollow and shrink, and the ground suddenly got a lot closer as I shrank. Now morphing might actually be cool, if it wasn’t so illogical. Luckily the Andalites found a way to numb the incredible pain that I’d be going through right now.
I glanced over at Marco, who was midway through his own morph, that of an osprey. I had to suppress a laugh, since he was only about two feet tall and had a giant beak sticking out of his face, but he was otherwise unchanged.
I looked at Jake, also about halfway into his peregrine falcon morph. He also had a giant beak sticking out of his face, and his arms were replaced with giant goofy looking wings. His chest was also covered in equally giant feathers.
And then I looked at Cassie. Now Ax had said a while ago that Cassie had a natural talent for morphing, and looking at her now you could easily see why. Unlike the rest of us who looked like a bunch of circus freaks Cassie was smoothly transitioning into her osprey morph. Feathers rippled and sprung up across her skin like droplets of water, and her wings grew smoothly from her arms.
After a few minutes the four of us were all in bird morph riding some midafternoon thermals. The eagle part of me was constantly scanning the ground far below, as easily as if I were reading the page of a book right in front of me. When I turned my head up again, I spotted a red tailed hawk and northern harrier flying towards us.
<Alright, Tobias,> Jake said, <lead the way.>
We all followed behind Tobias, spacing ourselves out appropriately. So many different kinds of birds of prey flying together, especially those that sometimes hunted each other, would likely draw attention.
We flew in silence for a while. It was Ax who spoke up first.
<Prince Jake, I see some form of clearing up ahead. From the ground it would appear natural, but it is clearly manufactured when viewed from above.>
Ax was right. Looking at the area he mentioned, it was fairly easy to see how trees had been cut down irregularly. Silently we descended to the clearing and perched among the bordering trees.
<Alright, Hawk-boy. I see a nice wide-open clearing, but no spaceships,> Marco complained.
<Most likely the ships are concealed beneath a cloaking device, so as to avoid potential discovery by passing humans,> Ax pointed out.
<’Captain, suggest we engage our own cloaking device.’>
<I do not understand, Marco. We do not possess a ship, nor am I a captain.>
<It’s a joke, Ax,> Cassie explained patiently.
<I fail to see the humor in it,> he replied after a moment.
<Guys,> Tobias interrupted, <I hear voices.>
We all stopped bickering and listened. Now that I was paying attention, I could easily hear two voices speaking below us.
“Are you sure this many troops are necessary?”
“According to Visser Seven they are. From what’s been shown to us in the reports, this species isn’t an easy one to take over.”
“I wish they’d give us a bit more information. Not easy to fight something you know very little about.”
“I hear you, but Visser Seven’s been very tight lipped about the whole place. Most likely so she can present the planet to the Council and get a nice big promotion.”
“Well, Visser Three’s being awfully nice to her, don’t you think? Not like him to willingly give up troops like this.”
“You obviously didn’t hear the transmission between the two. Trust me, he’s not too pleased about this one bit.”
“Now that’s more like him. Did you get a look at her new host body?”
“No, but I don’t think he did either. She said to Visser Three that she wanted this new host to be a surprise.”
<Perfect. Now we have Visser Three and Visser Seven to contend with. This war just gets better and better.>
<Marco, do you do anything beyond complain?> I said, somewhat angrily.
<Ax, what do you know of this Visser Seven?> Jake asked, before Marco could respond.
<I vaguely remember that Yeerk from training. She is a very deceptive Visser, who would have had a higher rank by now if the Andalites hadn’t defeated her in several battles.>
<Ha, she probably tricked Visser Three into lending her these troops then,> I said with a laugh.
<Ok everyone, demorph and go small. We need to sneak on board and do some damage,> Jake said once the controllers had passed.
<Let’s do it!> I said proudly.
<Have I ever told you that I hate it when you say that?> Marco said cynically.
After another quick morph, six flies were zipping around in the clearing. As best as we could we searched for the cloaked ships or any other sign of controllers, but fly vision is not the best. Try imagining a kaleidoscope as your main source of viewing the world, and you might come close.
<Hey, um, guys?> Cassie squeaked. <I think I’ve landed on something, but I could swear I’m still in midair.>
I spun around in midair and backtracked to her position. Sure enough a lone fly seemed to be resting in midair. I hovered close to the area and soon felt my spiny legs bang against something hard. <Guys, I think we found one.>
<Well, this was a brilliant plan. Now what, oh fearless leader?> Marco said.
For a moment there was silence. <Ax, think we could find a way in?>
<Perhaps, but it will take time, especially seeing as how the ship is cloaked to these primitive eyes.>
Suddenly there was a huge spike in vibrations from the ship. Looking at it as best I could, I saw something appearing in the air. It was like a door opened in the air itself.
<I think I just found our way in.>
<Alright, everyone move! Now!> Jake commanded, and we took to flying again, heading for the door as fast as we could.
It was dark inside the ship; the only light was coming from the open door. As best we could we navigated through the dark and hid on the ceiling. We waited attentively for about ten minutes, but nothing happened.
<This doesn’t seem right,> Marco said. <Where are all the people?>
<Alright, Ax, you find a secluded spot and demorph.>
<At once, Prince Jake.>
Ax flew down and began to demorph. I tried to follow him, but the darkness combined with my uncooperative fly eyes made it difficult. The rest of us waited anxiously for Ax’s answer.
<Prince Jake, the reason there are no humans here is because we have stumbled onto the ship designated for weapons. I believe it should be safe for the rest of you to demorph.>
One by one we flew to the ground and returned to our normal selves. I was glad for the darkness during this. Watching a person emerge from a fly is not the most pleasant thing in the world. When we were finished I fumbled around for a bit until I hit the lights.
“Oh, wow, they’re really serious about fighting these things, aren’t they?” Cassie commented. All around us were racks of hand-held Dracon Beams, the Yeerks signature weapon, as well as bombs, missiles, and even a fair number of rifles and shotguns.
“Well, this is good,” said Jake. “We take out the weapon ship, which should slow them down a bit.”
“Am I the only one still wondering why the hangar opened so suddenly?” Marco asked.
As if on cue, we heard voices nearing the ship, coming from outside.
“Why do we have to check the ship again? This is the third time today!” One of the controllers from earlier was complaining, fairly loudly.
“Quiet, you fool. Do you really want the Visser to hear you whining? Plus, do you want to be the one that tells Visser Seven that her weapons ship crashed during takeoff?”
“Good point. So does everything check out?” He said after a pause.
“Looks like it. I guess we should head to the human’s ship and prepare for launch. We’ve only got ten minutes before liftoff.” The sound of the door closing behind him cut off the rest of whatever he was going to say.
“Please tell me he did not just say this ship is leaving now,” I asked. Before anyone could answer the computers began to flash to life and the engines roared as they powered up.
I scrambled around, finally noticing a door set into one of the walls. As I neared it, it opened automatically, and I found myself in what appeared to be the control room. Curiously, it was unoccupied. “Ax, get over here!” I called.
The bright blue Andalite calmly walked over, looking around the room. <It is the bridge of the ship,> he stated matter-of-factly. Ax walked over to a computer and stared at the screen for a few moments. <They are controlling the weapon ship via remote. Possibly because they fear one of the missiles or bombs exploding.> He examined the screen some more. <The signal is encrypted, and would take too long to break.>
“Guys, I think we’re in trouble,” Marco spoke up, walking into the control room. He pointed above the computer screen, out one of the windows I failed to notice earlier, and I looked up just in time to see the moon pass by.
<Have I mentioned that I hate being enclosed in enemy ships before?> Tobias said as he, Jake and Cassie came into the control room. He was perched on Cassie’s shoulder, since there wasn’t much flying space for a hawk.
“We are going to be so late for school tomorrow,” I said moments before the ship jumped into Z-space.