Chapter One

My name is Jake.

I was a normal kid, once. A kid that liked sports, a kid a bit tall for my age. I got awkward around cute girls. I thought I was going to be a basketball player. I had – and still have – brown hair and brown eyes. Saw one of me, could have seen a million of me.

The difference is that whether or not I liked it I was destined to become a freedom fighter. First against the Yeerks – and if you don't know that story by now, then you should read the narratives from before, because I could write a whole book there before moving onto the new challenge.

Now for creatures in Kelbrid space – possibly starting with the Kelbrid themselves.

It began with trying to save one of my old team – Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill – and becoming ensnared in a terrible creature known as The One, a parasite that lived off of our experiences and our minds – instead of our bodies. And when it took me, took my team, we were placed in a reality within our own minds, of its own creation, as well as ours.

We escaped, my friends and I. Along with two new allies.

Me, the "leader" of the team. Though it seemed like everyone from my own team had, thankfully, shaped up to be good leaders all by themselves.

Marco, my best friend, the comedian and skeptic. Olive skin, dark long hair, dark eyes, and a bit on the short side.

Ax, the Andalite prince who had started with us so long ago as an aristh or Andalite cadet in the military. The younger brother of Elfangor, who had given us the power to morph using Andalite technology called the Escafil device.

Tobias, the human boy who had become trapped in the morph of a red-tailed hawk. The boy who, now, was trapped in the body of an Andalite morph that through strange circumstances was actually his uncle.

Ondrean, one of the crew aboard the spacecraft – the Intrepid - that had been destroyed by The One. One of our successful rescues. Who, using an Andalite fighter we found at The Cage, as we had called the spacecraft that had held us hostage – had headed back for Andalite space. Both to report us as missing on an illegal journey in Kelbrid space, and try to gather some supplies and crew. For when we got a hold of the Blade Ship. Though right now we were on an Andalite research vehicle.

And Leah, a girl our age who had been a Human-Controller – someone who had been controlled by a Yeerk – for many years only to end up as part of The One until we saved her. A girl our age that didn't really know how to act like an adult because she'd had no control over anything she'd done for so many years.

We were out in search of the Blade Ship, as well as waiting for a report back from Ondrean telling us where to meet to gather what he was collecting. The current spacecraft we were in was smaller than the Blade Ship, but still really wasn't made for five people. We would need more crew to staff either place enough to fly.

To operate the craft we needed a minimum of three people. And that was not optimum – it was high-risk, even if the people operating had all been trained Andalite. A lot of controls went untouched, on auto-control, and we had to hope we didn't hit any emergencies.

And, being an Andalite vessel, the food supplements there were made for Andalites. Great for Ax and Tobias. Terrible for us humans. We were having to eat grass emergency paste for Andalites unable to stand.

It was going to be a rough few weeks before we got the call from Ondrean.

Then there was the complication of staffing the controls for any particular shift – with a minimum of three crew awake at any time and five people it meant every position, and everyone, would end up needing to take a double-shift on the bridge. Leah or Ax had to be present for any shift because they had the most experience knowing how to operate spacecraft. Leah was used to Yeerk spacecraft and had been forced into training as a Human-Controller, but since Yeerk technology copied Andalite technology she had been fairly easily updated.

Lastly, to make my life just that more difficult: Leah and Marco did not exactly get along. They could both be forced to work together, but it was a strain on anyone being forced to listen for hours on end to their conversations.

"You. Have. Not. Heard of. Weird Al."

"No"

"And you have never heard of MTV"

"No. Is that like an acronym or something?"

You see what I mean.

Marco knew she'd been infested before she hit adolescence. And during one of these sorts of interrogations we found out she'd never had cable as a kid. Her mom had been trying to avoid her getting addicted to cable television and so Leah just never saw a lot of that stuff. Then she'd been infested so she'd had no reason to even try to get into it later on. But since then he'd just spent any time with her trying to find out just how ignorant about everything she was. I think he was entertained by it all, but it just didn't work for the rest of us.

So, I had to try to arrange shifts so that they would be Marco, Ax, and Tobias or me. Or Leah, me, and Tobias or Ax. Giving the three of us the most weight as double-shifters. But I couldn't always do that, obviously, because that was too much of a workload and unfair to everyone else. So sometimes they ended up working together. And I'd always try to take that shift as the third wheel to spare Ax and Tobias.

Mostly I was frustrated at Marco. He's my best friend and always will be, of course, but Leah couldn't exactly help being out of the loop, and she was fairly immature. We'd been out here a few weeks and it was just one of those things – you could see her trying to be the adult she'd never had a chance to become, but getting frustrated at her lack of success.

Hopefully she'd figure out how to reconcile her lost childhood with her current adulthood now. At least she'd stopped saying "grown-up" or little things like that. Picking over her food when there was really no option available. But she'd spent all of her adolescence and a few extra years being controlled by a Yeerk tyrant. So acting like an adult or showing interest in things aimed at anything beyond ten years old or so just hadn't happened. We had to hope that could be overcome now, with her already being our age.

So I tried to be really, really understanding. On the other hand...

"How could you not have heard of Star Wars?"

"Hey! I've heard of that one – the one with Spock, right?"

"Marco!" I snapped, "Please cut it out."

As long as she wasn't learning, he was going to have to learn. In the meantime, I was really wishing I had shipped her back off with Ondrean to go to Earth.

We had been waiting for Ondrean's call. Hopefully it would be coming any day now, because otherwise we were running low on supplies – and the supplies we had weren't exactly sustainable for humans in the long run.

We were getting antsy. Irritable about being on board. Hungry and mad about the food situation.

Once I'd read that the biggest problem with sending a flight to Mars wasn't the actual flight – but the close interaction of a small team for the years it would have taken to get there, back in our old we had gotten Andalite aid and had become technological partners. Being stuck alone with such a small group would cause paranoia and other serious problems. Cabin fever.

Eventually, we were going to have to get away from that particular situation.

So, we used the Researcher to look for nearby planets and moons that could sustain human and Andalite life, until we got the call from Ondrean. A place to land the craft, stretch our legs, and get some real rest that could not be had from space. Preferably not too far, preferably with no likeliness of being noted by any intelligent life – since Andalites were not supposed to be in Kelbrid space and finding us would have started an interstellar war. Well, probably. Maybe a nothlit and a disgraced outlaw wouldn't count.

Ax had taken control of the search. And, in a few days, he proudly pointed the coordinates of a planet with three moons – one of which showed up as having water, a breathable atmosphere safe to both of our species, and mostly just grasses on the landforms.

"Wow Ax. It's perfect. Is there any particularly dangerous life?"

‹No, this planet has potential for more complex life forms at some point. Atmospheric disruption in the past slowed its development of animal life forms.›

"Ah. Good for us, then."

Everyone was excited. Everyone was happy. We cruised out into Z-space and came out a few hours away from the moon. A pretty good leap, since we couldn't go too fast without time slowing down for us. A lot of the time in the past if we were in Zero space we would end up weeks away from our destination.

With all five of us on the bridge, we managed to get down onto the planet surface. Tobias and Ax could really graze for the first time in a long while. There was fresh water, and the grass, a neon orange color, was soft and comfortable in the land of plenty.

"This could totally be our home base," Marco said, "At least, until we're really moving on our new mission. This could be our place to come back to, so we don't go completely crazy on the Researcher."

Tobias and Ax agreed – as a claustrophobic species being on the spacecraft for long periods of time wasn't really easy, even if they were used to it. Leah seemed more indifferent, now that she'd had an opportunity to stretch. Since she wasn't social, she didn't seem to feel the strain of people not being present the same way we did.

But I agreed with the others – I'd definitely had started feeling on edge myself. The last war, we'd been at school during the day. We could meet at the mall. There had been people all around, everywhere. Or we had been fighting. Not this long, drawn out exploration and search for specific items and goals.

"Yeah," I said, "This is a good spot. How about we set up camp? Sleep outside tonight, if the weather's mild."

‹It will be, Prince Jake.›

We could. It would be easy enough to leave the Researcher's communications up so we could get important messages. And we could turn everything else off to prevent ourselves from showing up like a blimp in another craft's detection systems.

I gave in. We couldn't be searching or fighting our whole time out there on a mission.

And so we set up camp for some rest and relaxation while waiting for Ondrean's call.