<Noooo!> Ax screamed.
Jeka had just suddenly gone after Visser Three. We couldn't stop her. She had been too quick. I was starting to feel pretty hopeless. Then something below on the ground caught my eye. Jake, Marco, and Sandra were making a break for it! They had somehow unlocked one of the doors.
<Look!> Rachel cried. She had noticed, too.
<Two choices,> I said grimly. <Try to save Jeka. Or try to figure out a way to go out with them.>
<We can't just leave her to die!> Ax cried.
His response took me by surprise. He's usually the sensible, ruthless one. Not this time.
<We don't have a choice!> Rachel yelled in frustration.
<Look,> Cassie said softly. <There are like 500 Yeerks going for her, Ax. There's no way we can save her. There just isn't.>
<Okay,> I said. I had made my decision. <See that small black building? We go in there. Everyone, demorph. I'll morph, and Ax, you remorph. We then go out and try to make a beeline for the door. Everybody got that?>
<Yes,> Rachel answered tersely.
<So do I,> Cassie whispered.
Ax didn't answer, but I knew what his final decision would be. <Guys!> I called out to Jake and Marco. <Leave the door ajar!>
I opened my wings and circled the building we were hiding behind. I dove down toward the small black building, where someone absentminded-minded had left the door open. I cocked my head and looked behind me. Cassie and Rachel were right behind me, diving brutally to avoid glances from the Controllers. I heard yells, but no Dracon Beams were being shot. Yet. I focused my eyes and looked for Ax. I watched as a northern harrier quivered, hesitated, then followed.
I sailed into the room and demorphed. The others were right behind me. I morphed as quickly as possible. But I didn't morph human. I focused on the Hork-Bajir DNA inside of me.
<What are you doing?> Rachel snapped. Then, after a couple of seconds, <Oh, I see. Just in case of a battle, huh? Cool.>
Cassie got done the first, of course. "Oh, my gosh," she whispered, looking outside. "I didn't realize how many people are out there. How are we ever going to get to the door?"
<I'll make room for us,> I said.
I was almost done morphing. So was Rachel. Ax still had a bit to go, since he had gotten there last. I was beyond scared. This would be tough. Finally we were all ready. Three humans and a Hork-Bajir.
I opened the door and took the lead. A couple of heads cocked our way. We hadn't been part of the crowd, after all, and I guess that was somewhat conspicuous. I began to feel panicky. I rushed forward, forcing a gap in part of the lunatic rush. It felt very biblical. We had to hurry, before people started to figure out why we were going in the direction we were going. Unfortunately, there was about a dozen yards to the door. We were maybe halfway through, when a light bulb lit up in several Yeerk heads.
Suddenly I had to fight my way through, as well as force it. Maybe picking my Hork-Bajir morph wasn't such a hot idea after all. I drew more attention than the others, that's for sure. Suddenly I was standing face to face with another Hork-Bajir. He swung a bladed wrist! I dodged and jumped to the side. He tried to ram me with his head horn blades. I jumped and twirled around and caught him in the stomach with my tail. Lucky shot. He sagged, then fell. I jumped over him, trying to make up for wasted time. But the brief fight had drawn attention.
A few of the human-Controllers were now looking at us. I was sure I was road-kill, but then a thought occurred to me. They didn't know which one was the Andalite! Hey, for all they knew, one of us thought the other was an Andalite, and went after him for no reason. Most of them hadn't seen us as we entered the crowd at an odd time, and were heading in the wrong direction. So I did the only thing I could think of: I began to run with the rest of the crowd.
<Tobias! What are you doing?> Ax demanded.
I was shocked. I didn't think Ax could use his thought-speech as a human. Oh, well. You learn something new every day, I guess.
<Don't worry,> I told him. <If I hesitated, they probably would have figured I was an Andalite. So right now I'm going with the flow. In a couple seconds, I'll figure out how I can do double back and get to the door. You go through the door now, and I'll be back a few seconds from now.>
I turned my snake-like head and saw with relief as Cassie, Rachel, and Ax made it safely out the door. My turn, I thought. I saw my chance by one of the large sky scraper towers. There was a crate. An empty, very large crate. Okay, I know, I must have watched too many cartoons as a human to get this idea. But hey, it worked.
The plan was thought of super-spontaneously, and pulled out just as quickly. I was running by it, and suddenly the idea popped into my head and I dove into the crate. Now, even if this crate was big, it was just slightly cramped for me. But not for long. I focused on the red-tail whose body was now me. Suddenly, the crate felt quite roomy. Actually, it didn't really, because "roomy" to a bird is about 5 square acres. But it definitely was big enough.
I then morphed to my human form, because I couldn't push the metal crate (it wasn't one of those holed ones, by the way) in the hawk's body. Then, in the crate, I started to push. I pushed slowly, not to become heavily conspicuous. Which was not hard to do, since the Yeerks around me had another person to worry about. People just walked over me as I inched forward, anyway. Eventually, I hit the wall. Hoping that I was somewhat close to the door, I lifted the crate and ran through the door before anyone could even yell out. When I came outside, I spotted two Hork-Bajir guards, one maybe ten feet to the right of me, one about thirty feet the left.
Both of them yelled out in unison. "Gyjopdaar fopiring!" I ran as fast as I could go.
Seriously, I ran harder than I have ever in my life. When I reached the tree line I tried to focus on demorphing. But suddenly I was pushed brutally down. A Hork-Bajir was 6 inches away from me, looking evilly at me. He lifted his Dracon beam. Then-
"Grrrrrrr!"
The Hork-Bajir fell back as a wolf leaped atop of him. The wolf took sunk its fangs into the Hork-Bajir before it could even figure out what was happening. <Glad we waited for you,> Rachel said. <Come on, demorph, then remorph to horse.>
<Horse?>
<It's your fastest morph. We can't go over treetop level, and as much as I would like to kick some Yeerk butt as a grizzly, basically we've decided that running away is our best option.>
<Let me guess, the others decided for you.>
<Yep. C'mon. Jake and Marco and Sandra and that other girl have left already. And more Hork-Bajir are on their way.>
I could not believe my stupidity. But I couldn't help it. My hatred had suddenly flared to a point I could not control. Aximili had most likely seen the Visser many times before. He had probably assigned himself to a human prince that told him not to do things like that. He was able to control himself. I had not. Now I was a crippled bird waiting to be killed. I didn't even try to escape. There must have been at least 500 Yeerks after me. I was in a dark corner behind several buildings. I wasn't even in despair. What was the point?
"The point is, my dear Jeka," I heard a soft voice say. "Even the most desperate situation has hope. Hope is gone, and only gone, when the life that hopes it is dead."
I turned my head to look at the voice. It was an adult human female. She was tall and had black hair that reached her shoulders and large, slightly slanted brown eyes. Her clothing seemed uniformed, but in a subtle way. What caught my eye was that around her neck was a golden medallion, which had Andalite-looking figures on it. <Who are you?> I demanded.
"My name is Millu," she said. "You will learn of my past self in time."
What did she mean by that? But another question plagued me.
<Why is it taking so long for the Yeerks to find me here?>
Millu smiled. "Oh, inquisitive Jeka," she sighed. "The Yeerks are taking so long because I have slowed time down through my transporter's powers. I have made it this way so you would have adequate time to escape."
<But how will I do this?>
Millu smiled again. She walked over to one of the heavily encrypted doors. Gently she pressed a console's buttons. Suddenly the door opened up. I was flabbergasted. Escape? As easy as that?
"Go," she told me. "Leave this place at once. Pick up your Escalif device, then run away from this place at once. Oh, and here's the clothing you shed." She handed me the pile of human clothing. I was shocked.
<Thank you,> I said, when no other words came to mind.
"Hurry," she urged me.
So I demorphed. I took the clothing and ran. There were Hork-Bajir both about twenty feet of the entrance on either side. I started to run before they had any time to even think about running after me. I scooped up the morphing cube where I had left it, and started to run madly. The Hork-Bajir were after me, but I eventually evaded them.
When I was sure I was safe, I stopped running to catch my breath. Everything had happened so quickly. Meeting Aximili, the only true Andalite of the Andalite bandits…almost being killed by the Taxxons in a Yeerk ventilation system…finding out that one of the most admired princes in the galaxy broke Andalite law to save a people…and the crew! What had happened to the crew? The mission I had set upon had failed. My comrades were most likely dead. I had no idea where the morph-capable humans and Aximili had gone.
What would I do? Try to pose as a human? Stay in the forest? I had no idea. I sighed in side my head. I was pretty close to human civilization by now. I was fairly close to the edge of the forest, where some humans had set up a few farming settlements. I decided to go human. Perhaps I could stay at one of the farms for awhile. Through human communication, I might learn of new Yeerk plots at world domination. Who knew? So I morphed and put on the human clothes. I walked about two feet when I heard voices-
"Ahem. Marco? Remember about the explanations I wanted? I want to know now."
<You're never going to believe this.> I froze.
Unfortunately, I then shifted a tiny bit, and I fell.
We met the others close to the edge of the forest. Jake and Marco had both morphed horses so that they could carry the non-morphing of us. We were not interested in any more fights. We were interested in getting out of there alive.
<Yes!> Marco cried when two wolves, and Andalite, and a race horse appeared. Rachel, Ax, Cassie, and Tobias.
<You guys made it!>
<Not all of us,> Cassie whispered.
<The kestrel…who was that?> Jake asked.
<Her name was Jeka,> Rachel answered. <A female Andalite. Long story. By the way, what's the story behind those two?>
<Also a long story,> Marco answered. <A lot of which we don't know.>
"Ahem. Marco? Remember the explanations I wanted? I want to know now," Sandra said.
<You're never going to believe this,> Tobias sighed.
We all heard it at the same time. A stick snapped. "Oww!" blurted the snapper.
FFFWWWAAAP! Ax swung his tail-blade to this person's throat. It was a girl. She had cocoa-colored skin and long black hair. Her eyes opened wide at the sudden shock, but then she relaxed.
She smiled. "Good to see that you made it out as well, Aximili. Mili. Ax-im-i-liiiiiii."
<Jeka!> Ax cried with disbelief.
"Yes," the girl answered.
<How did you escape?>
"Long-"
"Story, we know," Sandra finished, a look of frustration on her face.
<Okay, okay, okay,> Jake interjected. <Everybody demorph, first of all. Then we can each take our turns telling what happened, or how they got involved.> So everybody demorphed.
"Alright," Jake said when they were all finished. "Who wants to first?"
"Maybe I should," I volunteered, since I figured most of them were most suspicious toward me, that and the fact that I knew nobody else wanted to go first. So I began to explain.
"My name's Rebekah," I introduced myself. "Rebbie for short. Anyway, the basic story is that the principal at my school, Mrs. Chen, was acting sort of strangely lately. So I sort of cut a class to spy on her, and discovered that she was a Controller and that there was this sort of thing going on, like some kind of Yeerk scheme. I didn't know exactly what was happening, but I knew that she was in cahoots with Chapman. So me and my best friend, Millu, who was Chen's n-"
<Millu?> Jeka asked. She sounded shocked.
"All comments to be made after the person is done," Sandra said officially.
So I continued, about how we spied and I got a modified Dracon Beam and how the sci-fi dance was involved and how I knew about the Animorphs as much as I did, which I should have explained closer to the beginning. But I've never been much of a storyteller. I finally finished by telling about the portal and how I had jumped through and then I told guiltily about how I had probably left Millu to die. After I finished, I waited for somebody to talk. When nobody did, I asked Sandra,
"Oh, Sandra. Do have any idea why we're identical?"
That seemed to snap her out of her shocked trance. "Oh, yeah, um, well, I was thinking about that. I think…I think we're, in a manner of speaking, inter-dimensional counterparts."
"Say what?" Marco asked.
Everybody was now out of his or her trance. (I guess my story sort of surprised them.)
<I think what Sandra means,> Ax explained.
<Is that she and Rebekah->
"Rebbie," I corrected.
<That she and Rebbie are each other's dimensional self. They are different people, of course, because each dimensional has enabled events in such a way that each person has experienced completely different lives, and thus they are different people. But their DNA still would be identical.>
"Ah," I said. I understood.
"And it's not like we're hard to tell apart," Sandra added.
As soon as the words had come out of her mouth, I realized this was true. Now that we were broad daylight, we could see that we DID look different. Sandra had slightly shorter hair than me, which was far better taken care of. It had practically no split-ends, had far less tangles, and seemed shinier and wavier.
Not like I was jealous or anything. Like I said at the beginning, I am a complete tomboy, and I really couldn't care less what my hair looked like, as long as birds didn't roost in it. Or the fact that I had a few blemishes, whereas Sandra had skin like those people in Starship Troopers. Furthermore, despite the fact that I was still wearing that black plastic armored suit, I could already tell that Sandra had tons more style than I did.
She was wearing bell-bottomed jeans with black high-tops and a purple spaghetti-strap shirt. I don't even own a spaghetti-strap. In other words, we really didn't look that much alike. Which was fine with me.
"Maybe I should be next with the explanation," Sandra commented.
"Good idea," Rachel commented.
So now Sandra explained. She told of her meeting with Chapman, how she had seen through his flimsy lies and had calculated heavy-duty conspiracy in the viscidity. (In case you can't tell, I'm using exact quotes.) How she had read the news articles and determined the Sharing as a direct link to the idiosyncrasies within the city, how she had joined the Sharing to spy and find out what was going on, her first brief meeting with Visser Three, how she had used the password to sneak into the compound.
Then Jeka told her story of the ill-fated practice ship mission, how her ship had been pulled into one of the space-rifts, how she had been the only one not captured, how she had spied on the Controllers that went through the path in the forest, how she had waited two weeks two use her human morph to deceive a Gleet Biofilter to go into the compound in an attempt to save her crew members.
Then she told of her escape. I was shocked, but a tiny hope now lingered in me. Could Millu have survived? If she did, I would probably find out soon enough. Then it was the Animorphs' turn to explain. It was more for Sandra and Jeka than for me, but I listened anyway, because it was sort of interesting to listen to the story from the Animorphs themselves. But as I listened, a distant part of my brain was worrying. There was something wrong, something deeply wrong. Then I figured it out.
The Andalite Chronicles! Oh, no. That would mean that…I knew the location for the most dangerous weapon any human has ever known. The Time Matrix. Furthermore, I knew about Elfangor and Loren. Which meant I had to tell Tobias.
Could I really? Could I really tell him about his biological parents?! On the other hand, how could I not?! How could I withhold that information from hi-
"I can not believe this," Sandra marveled. "You're real superheroes! The Animorphs: protecting the Earth from the scum of the universe!"
Her brown eyes danced with mischievous delight. She was ecstatic! Then again, I wasn't surprised. Sandra seemed like one of those people who were always on the prowl for adventure, one of those people who couldn't stand normal and yearned for the phenomenal. She didn't care about danger. She thrived in danger! I shook my head. I was too awed by the newfound information that I had realized I possessed to pay attention until then. Relax, I told myself. Worry about the whole thing later. This was important. I noted that Jeka was silent. She's still shocked about the Elfangor thing, I realized. "So what are WE going to do?" Sandra asked.
"Me and Rebbie? Since we don't have the morphing power, how are we going to help?"
<Um,> Jeka whispered. <I believe that the morphing power could be achieved rather easily.>
"Come again?" I asked.
Jeka knelt down to pick an object off the ground. Small, cubed, blue.
"A morphing cube!" I hissed.
<I retrieved this from the damaged ship before the Yeerks infiltrated it,> Jeka explained softly.
She let the comment hang in the air. We all knew what would most likely come next. Sandra's eyes grew wide.
"Will we get the morphing power? Will we?"
<I don't know,> Jeka said softly. Her stalk eyes drooped to the ground.
"You don't know what?" Rachel asked.
Jeka looked up. <I don't know if I could simply break the rules like that. To do this…it would be ignoring so much that I have learned. I just don't know.>
"Jeka," Cassie said softly. "Please. Think about this. We are six people, six people that fight alone against the massive Yeerk forces. If you and Sandra and Rebbie were to join us, we would gain a third more people! We've all broken laws, and we've all done terrible things. Can you not help us? Can you not pay a price for a people's freedom?"
Jeka did not say anything for awhile. I held my breath. Would she say yes? Would she give us the morphing power? Then, slowly, Jeka looked up again. She held the box out.
<Each of you, touch a side of the box.>
I held my breath. I touched a side. Sandy touched a side. And we received the great morphing power. But even as I felt the funny tingling vibrate inside my body, the back of my head worried, and wondered what I would do about the dangerous information inside of me. Only one thing seemed sure: this was hardly the end of Ultramorphs.
The End