My name is Jeka-Linquan-Vahac. I am an Andalite female. A warrior wannabe. I knew I could be one. I knew I had it in me. Unfortunately, the Electorate, the ruling council of the Andalite home world, did not think so. They did not think any female had it in them. I would prove them wrong.
When I had just finished school, I joined a group called the Macolvetir. This organization believed in females in the military. Their headquarters was wonderful, with huge and well-stocked labs, fight training, and, best of all, morphing technology. That was a dream come true for me. I had always wanted to morph, but the technology was only given to the military.
After you had moved up from being a tyok (the equivalent of an aristh) to a warrior, you would join a group of three and your group would be given small assignments in deep space. The Electorate disliked the Macolvetir (this was fine; I hated them), but since we technically weren't braking any laws, they couldn't do a thing.
When I finished the climb from tyok to warrior I was assigned to a squadron. The captain of the group was named Darij-Capia-Turon. She was older than I and higher in level, so we had never met. The recikot (the co-captain) was Yuoptrew-Semitur-Jyrbess. He (yes, we allow males; we weren't stereotypes, unlike certain councils I know) was known as a prominent scientist and a qualified exo-datologist. He was also known as having been asked into the military; he had declined. The fentro (third in command) was a Malitike-Krorrin-Noniter. Malitike was just slightly more experienced than me and for a few months we had trained together. She was very nice and very good.
<Um, hello,> I thought-spoke nervously, meeting the group for the first time. I had just graduated from being a tyok a few days ago, and I had been assigned there last night.
<Hello, teryllprej Jeka,> Darij said formally, acting as serious as a captain of a dome ship would, not a captain of a not-that-important squadron. (Oh, and a teryllprej is lowliest in command. I was assigned to that because everyone in my group was older and a more experienced warrior than I was. I guess I forgot to tell you. )
<Hello,> Yuoptrew greeted me. He's much more friendly than Darij, I thought.
<Hi, Jeka!> Malitike started to welcome me, but Darij gave her a look that could melt your tail blade. Not surprisingly, she wasted no time in salutations.
<Our officers have assigned us many logs to go over before we start flying for real, not in simulation mode. We have much to read, and little time to do so. Most of this you probably recall from training as tyoks> -She looked at me when she said that- <but some is new, and it is very specific.> She then handed us some sheaves of computer logs. No doubt she would have added something like, &It; request you start reading them immediately, and don't forget, teryllprej, or the consequences may cost you your warrior-ship.> or something equally annoying.
Fortunately, though, the thought-speak announcement came on announcing that it was time for lunch. All the meeting squadrons herded out the various exits outside to the grounds of the Macolvetir's building-space station- headquarters. Malitike and I headed over to a small stand of trees, talking and eating.
<Darij has a serious attitude problem,> I commented, stretching my tail.
<What's with her?>
I guess I sort of expected Malitike to defend Darij when I said that. I was telling the truth when I said Malitike was nice. So it took me by surprised when she agreed. <Yes, Darij can be a bit... arrogant.>
<She IS arrogant and she's VERY arrogant, not just a bit.> I corrected.
We talked some more and she told me a little about Yuoptrew. I was shocked to learn he was the nephew of Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, the war-prince imprisoned by the notorious Yeerk, Visser Three, for twenty-something years. (The Macolvetir has taught us this, and many other things. The average Andalite citizen is about as intelligent about what happens in the military as the kafit bird is intelligent about what happens in the sea.) After an hour had passed, the thought-speak summons told us lunch break was over. We all went inside.
<Okay,> Darij said, calmly, but at the same time, excitedly. <Maximum burn.>
"WHOOOSSHH!" The engines made a monstrous sound, but the compensators were excellent and we felt only a slight vibration. We pulled out of the spaceport and into the outer atmosphere in a mere matter of minutes. It then took only a few minutes more to escape atmosphere completely.
<Yeehahhhh!> I blurted in utter excitement before I could stop myself.
Darij gave me her patented blade-melting glare. <You done, teryllprej?>
I was about to say something that would surely get me reprimanded, when Yuoptrew cut in. <Cut her some slack, Dari- I mean, Captain. It's the first time Jeka, or any one of us, has been in real space before. Tell me you weren't thinking the exact same thing. Besides, this is only for practice.>
<At least I have some self-control,> Dar- I mean Captin Darij muttered, but she said no more of my outburst.
So here we are, I thought, a million miles up in space. Ah, timeless space. I had drempt so many times about it when I was younger, and now I was finally there. Ah, sweet destin- WWWHHHAAPP !
<What in the-> Malitike yelled. The next few moments are haze in my memory.
The last thing I heard was one of the officers yell over the ship's speaker. <Squadron 43 ! What is happening?!> Although I remember that, it is what I last saw that lingers most in my memory. Just before I blanked out, I looked up on the screen. I saw what looked liked a compacted nebula, a huge purplelish portal that loomed over us. Then I didn't see purple. I saw black...
"So this is what you basically want me to do," Millu asked me sarcastically. "You basically want to skip class to spy on my aunt, because you think she's been abducted by pod-people or something. And you want me to cover for you by telling Mr. Gopiton that you have strep throat."
"Yes," I answered heatedly. "You think you can do that?"
She sighed. "Please tell me why I do these things for you."
"Because you are my absolute best friend in the whole, wide world and vise-versa and that either one of us would take a bullet for the other. Only you'd be sarcastic about it."
Millu sighed again, but this time she was smiling. "Fine, fine, fine. I'll do it. And being such the considerate friend I am, I'll also get your homework."
Hi. My name's Rebekah, but everybody calls me Rebbie. You can, too. I'm your basic , total-tomboy, straight Bs, gotta-have-your-science-fiction-series, brown eyed, brunette sixth grader. I have a baby brother named Aaron and an older sister named Miriam. From what you read up above, you can also guess that Millu is my best friend. I'm very average. I'm so average, in fact, that it took like, four sentences to tell you about myself. So of course I jump at any chance at all to have a little excitement. It wasn't only that, though. Millie's aunt (who also happens to be the principal of our school) Mrs. Chen seemed just a little too preoccupied lately , just a little too paranoid, and that day I was going to find out what exactly was going on with her.
The bell rang for homeroom just then, and Millu was lost to me in a wave of moosey heads, trendy mini-skirts, and putrid perfume. I hung back in the crowd until the halls were clear. I then jumped into the janitor's closet. You see, the janitor's closet is right next to Mrs. Chen's office, and it (as I had checked a few days ago ) had not only non-soundproof walls, but a few small holes at the bottom of it. I also had with me a tape recorder, because I knew that Millu would be slightly skeptical if I told her Mrs. Chen really was a pod-person. Or maybe a Yeerk. A Yeerk was a good possibility. Of all my sci-fi books, the Animorphs were my favorite. I have (and have read) all of the books. I've memorized chapters. Anyway, I am very much off the track, so let me get back to the story. Sure enough, after a few minutes, I saw the periwinkle spikes of Mrs. Chen's high-heels. I got up to my feet and pressed my head against the wall. There I heard it all. Too much, actually. This is what I heard.
"Iniss 2-2-6. Iniss, come in. There you are. Of course it is Flerexx, you idiot. Who else would be calling at this time of day? Report." (I was already growing excited. Iniss 2-2-6? That was Chapman's Yeerk's designation. I recalled it faintly from book #2. This was big. This was very, very big.) "Yes, I already know about the Pekopylet microscopes for Dracon beam variations. We got them from the Skrit Na traders. That, that is new. Random space-rifts? No, no one has told me of this, dim-wit." (Quite the acid tounge, this Flerexx, I thought.) "Can you stop them? Yield the TRANSPORTING?!! Not a prayer. This is too good an opportunity, too good a chance for temporary shutdown. This is the ideal reality: Same stupid, primitive humans, same huge population of possible hosts at our fingertips, and, best of all, no Andalite scum jinxing projects that should be easy. No, no one is close to figuring it out," (Yeah, right, I thought sarcastically) "except for one particular human girl who is friends with my host's niece. She is irrelevant, though. Once this project is more stable I will make sure she is one of the first humans, after Chen, to be made into a Controller." (Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!, I thought frantically. She knows! She's gonna make me Controller!) "Yes, I'll take care of the niece, too. Why are you being so paranoid? Of course I am, too, just not so much. Do you have anything more that's actually important or are we just going to babble on forever? My host has a meeting to go to. Good. Flerexx 1-8-6 out."
I was shaking by the time I got to second period. Man, Millu was going to freak.
"What?! Leave?! Just like that?! New York, my friends, just go kaputskee? And Marco's city, nontheless. I can't believe you're doing this to me. I simply cannot believe it. I like it here. I'm used to here. Neither applies to Marco's city. I mean, it's barely a city. It's like a town, almost. It would be, except for the two Planet Hollywoods. And what about Alicia and Kiana and Lani and Hope and Denise and Pynne? They're my friends, Mom. I like the city, Dad."
My parental units looked at me gravely. "It's like we said, Sweetie," my mom tried to comfort me. "My job is very important to the well-being of the family. You know that. I've tried everything to stay here, but there's nothing I can do. I know you really love where you are, Sweetheart, but we can't stay. And I'm really, really sorry about that."
I grumbled something about a late homework assignment and went to my room. I was being a selfish brat and I very well knew it. Everything Mom had said was true, but I hated it.
Hi. My name is Sandra, although I have various nicknames: Sandy, SandGirl, Sanny, and Agent S. (You know, a Man in Black?) I'm what you might call a classic over-achiever. I'm good at lots of things: I have a green belt in karate, I have never gotten anything below an A-, I have a great fashion sense (I love to shop), I have a ton of friends (reference above), and I like art and the art of acting. I also love adventure and I think I used to like change. I know what you're thinking. I am not a snob! I rarely ever have whine-streaks like the one above, and I can't help it if I might seem painfully multi-tasked or whatever. Like the quote says, "I am what I am and that's alls that I am." Anyway, the other facts you might be interested in are: I am brown eyed . Ditto for the hair. I have no siblings, but many cousins.
The one I have been mentioning , Marco, is as different to me as you can possibly get. First of all, I'm super tall for my age (5 foot 4 at just-turned-11) and I look like my mom, who's Jewish and European, while Marco is super short (a little under 5 feet at 15) and he looks likes his mother, who was Hispanic. (His mom was lost at sea about three years ago. It must have been horrible, and I'm sure it still is.) He has short black hair and dark eyes and the most adorable little face. (Don't ever tell him that, though. He is so egotistical when it comes to his cuteness.) Not only do we not look alike, we don't act alike. I'm serious but fun, not a snob, although I do sometimes over-estimate about my own ability. He's a joke-a-holic, making jokes at any little thing, whether it's funny or not. I mean, he makes jokes about wars. Wars aren't funny.
Dispite the rude and that's-funny-why? jokes, though, his puns can be really helpful. Once when I was visiting him I had just had this extremely gruesome fight with Lani because she embarrassed me in front of this cool, cute guy named Tate and Marco made these really funny jokes about it and I was able to laugh it off and forgive her. He also listens to music from when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and has this big, responsible best friend named Jake. I also knew this about him: he would not take well to a younger, taller, better-grade-average, near-perfect-in-everything-she-does, and (seemingly) snobby cousin suddenly in his school and his grade.
The day when I heard the news was Friday. My mom's job (she's a lawyer) must have needed her there badly because we were leaving on Sunday. Talk about last minute. I had Saturday to tell my friends and spend my last full day in New York when I actually lived there. My friends were like Niagra Falls. I joined them. I spent the day with my parents and my posse, enjoying the city so nice they named it twice. On Sunday I left the Big Apple to a whole different biome. At the time when I left I thought I knew what awaited me. I thought I knew what I would do there, who I would see, what I would see. I was so naïve. Clueless, actually. I had not the slightlest idea.
"So Sandra the Great is coming here and there's nothing I can do about it and not only is she moving to town and going to our school, she'll be in our grade which is so not fair because since I'm older than her I should be taller and smarter than her but I'm not and she's gonna make me look like a total weinie and I am so not going to be able to stand it," Marco complained as we casually walked down our street and I dribbled my b-ball. It had been awhile since the last time we had spent an afternoon playing basketball.
Usually the whole Animorph lifestyle doesn't allow such simple pleasures, but lately the Yeerks had been laying low and fights with them had stalled. We knew better than to breathe a sigh of relief, though. When the Yeerks weren't causing trouble they were gearing up for more. Even if it didn't mean we could rest easy, though, it also didn't mean we couldn't enjoy the lack of action. So we had spent Saturday afternoon not turning into ants and traveling through a huge, secret underground tunnel, but playing basketball. Unfortunately, Marco's cousin, Sandy, was moving here, and Marco had spent the whole time complaining what a perfect person Sandra seemed and how compared to her, everyone in school (especially the girls) would think he was not at all cool.
"Marco, you're overreacting."
"I am not!"
"Yes, you are."
"Uh-uh!"
"Uh-huh."
"SnobGirl is moving here!!"
"Yes, you already told me."
"You haven't met her!!"
"Duh."
"Ahh! Jake, are you even slightly listening to me?!"
"House. 'Bye."
"You'll see what I mean when you meet her."
"'Bye."
"Oh, fine. Bye."
I wearily climbed up the steps. Marco was really freaked. Usually he doesn't do long-term whining, except for dangerous missions and icky morphs. Anyway, when I went inside I went to the fridge and got out a snack of ice cream and some Diet Coke. The minute I sat down, though, the phone rang. Rrrrriiinnnggggg! I know this sounds stupid, but the ring sounded urgent. I picked up the phone. "Hello, this is the-"
"Jake, it's Erek." I felt my throat instantly tighten. Erek is like the Official Messenger of Bad News & Scary Missions. When he calls, I just want to drop the phone and hide under my bed. Also, Erek has this bug-proof phone so I knew whatever he needed to tell me he would tell me front on, not the beating-around-the-bush kind of way we Animorphs need to use when we're on the telephone.
"What's up?" (I almost didn't want to know.)
"The Yeerks," he said with graveness in his voice. "They are planning something, and it is very, very big."
"What is it?"
"They got this technology from a little-known but fairly advanced sentient species. Technology that enables beings to travel to different universes."
"Are you kidding me? That sounds like the plot of Star Gate. Or Sliders."
"Although it sounds fictional, it is true. And if they succeed in enslaving a species from another reality, there will be no stopping them."
I didn't speak. I was just imagining it. Being invaded by aliens from another dimension? It was too creepy to think about. "You and the other Animorphs must come to my house. Data on the portal is limited (my Yeerk is not included in the project) but I'll tell you what I know."
I tried hard to focus on what he had told me. "Alright. I'll tell them. Bye."
"Bye." That time I was the one who was freaked.
Ding-dong. "Good. You're here. Come in."
" I'm tellin' ya, this can't be for real," Marco commented as we stepped inside. "I mean, a portal to other dimensions? Sure, there have been times when I thought my life was a TV show, but this is just too Sliders."
"Or Star Gate," I added helpfully. Erek started to walk up his stairs and urged us to follow. This surprised me. I guess I expected the stuff Erek wanted us to look at to be downstairs. We came up to his room.
"Why do human houses have stairs? Stairs. Airrs." Ax wanted to know.
"The Yeerks are using an inter-dimensional portal and Space-Boy suddenly develops an interest in human architecture," Marco joked.
"Interesting."
"Oh, shut up," Rachel groaned.
Erek ignored us and went to a drawer in his desk. He took out a small black cube. He pressed a few teeny tiny buttons on it and suddenly we were looking at a hologram.
"Blueprints. Ints," Ax said, staring intently.
"This is a section of the underground fortress where we believe the Yeerks are holding the portal, or the Oktykel, as they call it." Erek explained. "This fortress is at the base of the mountains by the forest."
"What're these?" Cassie asked, pointing to some seriously weird looking machines.
"Those are some Pekopylet microscopes," Erek answered. "The humans in the dimension they are seeking to enslave have slightly different cell structures and Dracon beams do not have as much as an effect on them." Erek continued to explain a few more details, but they were sketchy. Finally he handed us the tiny cube and told us that was all the information he could give us.
"How are we supposed to get into that fortress?" Rachel demanded when we were outside again. "What morphs will we use?"
I shook my head. "Somehow, Rachel, I do not want to know."
Jeka
I woke up.
My body ached like it never had before. I looked around; disoriented, trying to make sense of where I was and how I had gotten there. Then I started to think. Memories poured into my brain. The ship. The crew. The portal of violet light. It all swirled crazily in my mind. I got up with much difficulty and clumsily walked over the wreckage.
<Malitike!> I yelled. <Yuoptrew! Darij!>
No answer. I looked some more and saw the door hole, the door hanging by a few threads of electric wire. I walked over to it, and out of the ship. What I saw next was not possible. I expected Andalite landscape; we had been very close to the planet and the portal we had seen could have knocked us back in atmosphere, but what I saw was not Andalite. I was looking out onto a huge forest of cone shaped trees the color of Hork-Bajir skin. I was on a sloped landscape where the forest had stopped growing. There was still much vegetation, but it was grass and bushes and shrubs, not the trees I saw a ways beneath me. It was not Andalite, yet it looked familiar.
It took me a few seconds to comprehend. It was Earth! I couldn't believe it. I had learned a little of Earth in Xenobiology (I loved that class), and later on I had learned some more of Earth in my studies at the Macolvetir, mostly because the Yeerks were planning to enslave it, we were taught anything we might need to know. The landscape looked similar to a picture I had seen in the former. I trotted down the slope, every now and then calling <Malitike! Yuoptrew! Darij!>
I felt desperate and confused. I hated feeling that way. I then came to the beginnings of the forest. I tried to focus, to make a plan. I needed a plan. I then heard a sound. Several sounds. The ground I had walked on was being disturbed. Humans! I leaped into a dense surrounding of trees, out of view. I looked out into the opening with a stalk eye, wondering why humans would wander this far from their primitive human settlements. I listened to the two humans' conversation, and I learned the truth.
"other stupid dimension we're supposed to infest, when we're having so much trouble with this one." I took a good look at the female.
She was very short , and had dark pigmented skin, with long, dark braided hair growing out of her head.
"Tell me about it," the other said. "I'm having the hardest time trying to keep my cover, with all this work that I'm supposed to do."
Odd conversation, I thought. Must be Controllers. This other controller was taller than the other, and had lighter skin, almost golden. Her hair was hidden under a strange artificial covering. I believe they are called hats. The conversing continued. (The two Controllers were no longer walking. Humans tire much more easily than we Andalites do, and for this reason they had temporarily yielded travel.)
"So you heard the news of the space rifts?" asked the small dark one.
"Yes," answered the other. "yet another delay in the project. Only a handful of hosts have been made controllers in that dimension, and they're having the hardest time setting up a permanent pool. If you ask me, all it will take is the very sight of the Andalite scum to turn this mission into rubble. And huge, random space-rifts are not tolerable."
"The Andalites will not appear. An underground animal that can get pass the Gleet BioFilters and will be unnoticed otherwise, that the filth can obtain? Highly unlikely." (I was already totally bewildered. They talked of other dimensions. How did they obtain such technology? They also spoke of Andalites, however so viscously.
I thought that our forces to Earth had been destroyed. Did some somehow survive, and were still fighting? Gleet BioFilters were not as surprising as this other information. During my training, I had heard the officers talking about one of our forces captured by the Graysha Nebula. The Yeerks may have stolen this technology. I would not be surprised if they did. The Andalites on this planet were my main priority. They were my people, and if the squadron had been lost, they were all I had.)
"The visser will not accept a 'highly unlikely'. Don't forget, the filth were able to get by the Gleet BioFilters and the hunter robots, and were able to convert perfectly healthy Yeerks into lunatics. Visser Three" (Visser Three! I burned with hatred at the sound of his name.) "was nearly one of them. So 'highly unlikely' is not going to impress the visser."
The controllers were starting to walk again. I took a deep breath. I had developed a plan, but it was risky and could only be successful if I did it right now, close enough to the Yeerks. As quietly as I could, I stepped out of the dense patch of trees. I carefully walked so that I was only a few inches away from them. Then I struck the short one in the back of the head. FWWWAAPPPPP!
"Ahhh!" she cried , as I knocked her down with the flat side of my tailblade, knocking her unconscious. The other one reached for her Dracon beam, but was too slow. She was next. <Easy part's over,> I muttered to myself. I pulled both of them, unconscious, into where I'd been, in case another controller came along. I then aquired the short one. I'm sort of new at morphing. Three morphs: a djabala, a kafit bird, and a flaar. Not exactly great experience.
I was about to morph human, but then a horrible thought occurred to me. The ship! If I was close to a Yeerk compound, there would be no way for them not to pick it up. After I gathered minimal human clothing so that I would not be what humans call "naked", I ran full-out back to the wreckage and squirmed around it until I found the essentials: our morphing cube, a first-aid kit, a few shredders, and some records of information I did not want the Yeerks to have. The nano-second I had reached the privacy of the forest, I caught a glimpse of Bug Fighters descending upon the sorry mass of wreckage that used to be a wonderful, proud Andalite fighter.
I morphed the human morph right away and put on the human clothes I had taken. Humans and Hork-Bajir Controllers were examining the ship. I started to turn away and run but I soon found out that if you're going to walk with two legs, let alone run, you better have experience. I stumbled and fell and tried to walk but I had taken about six steps when I fell again.
"Stupid legs. Stupid. Legs. Egs. Huh?" I was amazed when I actually talked aloud for the first time. I have to keep quiet, I mentally lectured myself. Controllers everywhere. The Controllers from the Bug Fighters had started to move out looking for any Andalites that might have been inside the fighter. I kept the walking and stumbling process until I was far from the search party, the mountain, and the ship. I was still trying to make sense of what had just happened. Okay. The Controllers were my main source of information. Already I had learned many things from concerning the situation, and if I spied on other Controllers I might find out more. Like about those space-rifts the Yeerk scum had mentioned. Was that what happened to the ship? Did the Yeerks open a multi-dimensional portal and the side effects were random, unstable space-rifts that could engulf and hurtle a space ship light years to the very planet they were opening the portal on? It didn't seem possible. Yet that was what had happened. I had been in that strange and impractical human body for almost an hour and a half. I morphed back to my true Andalite form and wandered around the forest for awhile, as if the silent trees of Earth would tell me the solutions to my problems. I knew that I should have been looking for my crew, but I was tired. Too tired. I fell asleep that night in the forest, looking at a single moon and an infinity of stars, thinking thoughts in my confused and frustrated mind. I fell asleep knowing that my crew could be dead, and that I could die the next day, and that others like Squadron 43 could end up the same way. I was not going to let that happen.