Story [Animorphs] Diary of a Free Hork-Bajir (Dear Diary '09) (update 12/28)

A/N: Apologies to Christopher Pike for the use of a certain concept found in the pages of a novel called "Remember Me." (That concept? Wanderers. And really it was the second one. There were three.)


Entry thirty-four...


Date: Still November 17th...
Status: The plan will not be involving talking Zebras. A scary and somewhat hormonal planetary guardian on the other hand... *shudder* At least this one doesn't involve Taxxon morphs, a need for a wide-spectrum cone of frequency silence that takes myself and two others out of action for a month straight, and an insane sub-visser with detachable arms bent on killing us all. That... was less than fun. In fact, it wasn?t any fun at all.


I finally got it!!!!!! I finally got it!!!!! (And I'm almost offended. He does not write better reports than I do! Mine just tend to... weird people out.) Er... Hi Toby, this is Elsie writing, and before I hand the journal off to Michelle (for she was present for what happened next), I want to do an entry here.

While we left Loren in Eshara's care, there was a son to fill in on just what we'd done somewhat illegally. If an adult had been with us that night, we never would have potentially compromised anything the way we did. Although... Suna had an opportunity to stop us in our tracks and didn't because it was 'for the good of the timeline' that we act like our loony selves. And that's just what happened... Ranko's innuendo-laden food jokes included. And speaking of that... she was eight and her stepfather has the worst way ever of getting her to leave the house. Something about really bad cooking and being genetically lactose intolerant. It still doesn't make any sense, but whatever works for Professor Vernen... though, if he was trying to be subtle about it, it didn't work. At all.

Briefing Tobias had to be halted for like five minutes because all the stress of the evening finally caught up to me and... let's just say I was shaking and mumbling about a certain Andalite being eaten and not one bit coherent.

But getting back to Loren... a Time Guardian, Tasha, showed up not long after we'd left Loren in Eshara's care, and helped heal the rest of the damage that hadn't already healed in the time that she'd been in that coma. As for why? Well... Tasha had a very guilty conscience about something and was pulled away when she shouldn't have been because of Aniya needing a favor. (And I know this because Tasha herself can't lie worth beans. It's not important, but my life would be so much simpler if she could.) That favor? Well... Rose wouldn't have a boyfriend now if she hadn't gone, and that's all I'm saying. Cause and effect, you know?

It wasn't, by the way, one missing person. It was two... only I didn't figure out the second part until Chris and I had excused ourselves for the night and gone to watch a movie. Loren and Greg (who wasn't missing, just slightly amnesic due to really weird factors involving second chances and wandering back to the living) owe me big for that one. Twice in the same night, and the second one involved not actually getting to watch the movie, a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to a guy who was pleased as punch to have unexpected visitors, and Loren discovering that time had passed ala Rip Van Winkle while looking through that week's TV Guide and not being able to find her favorite shows. This... was not a pleasant way to tell someone that they've got the task of helping a Wanderer through the remembering process.

As for why Greg was important... you know how I said he'd somehow gotten partial amnesia? Seems he'd had it for a year or more... since right about the time that Elfangor was killed. Maybe a little before or after, he wasn't able to name exactly the day. More on that later, though. It's weird and I still don't understand it.

Giving the journal to Michelle now, as, like I said, I ended up being indisposed for ten or so hours due to sudden realization and remembrance of other half of causality loop that led me to having to track down someone I didn't remember until just that moment. (And... that

 

A/N: There's scenes to be posted at a later time related to what's going on in their present. It'll be a 'bonus material' thing.


Entry thirty-five...


Status: New wrinkle. Savage grounded Ranko AND Peter after they had an argument, and called it "medical prerogative." And Carter mentioned something about weird food cravings in passing. None of that really makes sense, but Elsie was smirking as she handed the journal to me after that little announcement. Somehow, I don't think I want to know what that was about. Good thing we've got... not exactly our full complement, though, if we're going in without Lightning Girl and Shadow Lad. And... I really have been here too long, if I'm making comic book references in a status report. And the not exactly part? Everyone that isn't here is off planet, either already there, or on their way to join the offensive. Is it good or bad that they planned it to happen in a place called "Wolf 539"?


Well, this is awkward. Never thought I'd be admittedly writing about my grandmother's reappearance years before I was ever born. And I take it back: finding out my father was trapped in bird morph for that long? Not the weirdest moment of my life. It might just be Allison's when we finally get home, though. And Toby? You CAN NOT show this journal to anyone. Like ever. You wanted to know and we told you. It's as simple as that. No showing it to everybody else when they get back: they lived it, they don't need to know our side of things for a LONG, long time. Also, I'm going to stop writing in code. We are what we are.

Loren (for she's not 'Grandma' to me yet) spent the night unconscious in Thunder's MedBay 4, under the watchful eye of Eshara, myself, Tobias (not 'Dad' yet, either), and Tasha (who didn't want to leave). Tobias spent the night perched on a stand they'd set up for him, and, aside from Loren waking up utterly disoriented around 3AM and then needing to be convinced to go back to sleep, it was very subdued and quiet. It... was the middle of the night. Of course it was quiet.

Actually... there was something off about her waking up disoriented like that. She yelled a name: Fred. Fred was Tobias's uncle's name. Uncle-in-law, really. Now, I have no idea why she'd have yelled his name like that, and later couldn't ask her, but... it still strikes me as odd. Just had to mention it, and I've never met the man because he died of a heart attack a couple of months after Tobias 'disappeared' (re: was trapped in bird morph).

About seven AM that morning, something changed. A baby cried from down the hall. Okay, so she wailed. It was startling, as none of us had quite realized that anyone was in labor. Turned out that Amy's mom was on board to have, well... Amy. And by the way? It's weird to have Amy here right now, just like it's weird to have Peter as an adult, and Ranko the-not-anymore-obsessed-with-Number-Munchers. And our Peter? He talks AND has a wicked dragon kick. The little one doesn't talk much and hasn't since his parents were killed a year ago and the Ryan's took him in. It's very, very disorienting, to suddenly have them here like this. And... wow. Didn't think I'd missed them that much.

So anyway, it was indeed Corry, Amy's mom, and Amy herself, and the ship's computer has a wacky sense of humor and had deposited Leah via teleportation beam right in the middle of medbay the night before while Corry was in labor. As that's kind of a normal occurrence, for the computer to do that, Leah probably wasn't shocked, but it likely earned Silver, the ship's AI, a perturbed computer expert running computer scans for a day and a half afterward.

And... I'm babbling. Sorry. I do that when about to try to pull off a plan crazier than the last two years put together and set on spin. Well... excepting the Polar Bear thing. Who knew the Yeerks would find ice creatures extinct for millennia, do some genetic engineering, and use those as guard dogs for their latest plan to take over the world via kandrona beams being beamed into swimming pools around the world? Frankly, I'm glad I ended up in a s

 

A/N: I got clobbered by DRL? and have no excuse to speak of other than that. Moving on? entry influenced very Heavily by the Andalite Chronicals. (Just what WAS Chapman doing out there with Loren in order to be abducted by the Skrit Na? We may never know.)


Entry thirty-six?


So Loren was waking up. That's where I left off, right? She woke up and didn't immediately recognize her son because, well... he'd grown in the eight or so years she'd been unconscious, and that led to some explaining on our part for Loren who was all confused. She was rather puzzled about it right up until the point where we mentioned the Yeerks. And right about then would have been a really, really good time for Elsie to have told us exactly what it was she saw when she got that vision, but she didn't, nor was she there, so we were left with confusion until Loren explained what she remembered.

Turns out that alien encounters run in the family... and she'd met Elfangor after being abducted on a camping trip with Melissa's Dad. I'd like to know what he was doing on her camping trip, or if that was some kind of accident, and right now it's hilarious. Or maybe not... according to her, Mr. Chapman is the reason the Yeerks found out about Earth in the first place. Which... is either the joke of the century, or the saddest story ever told in the history of mankind.

After we got Loren mostly oriented, Emanee released Loren to quarters on the stipulation that she have a medical attendant: Ranko. Ranko, who had been in the middle of what she called a debriefing when Emanee paged her. The debriefing was actually breakfast with Luke and Ally Chapman, niether of whom are related to Mr. Chapman, former (and present) alien abductee, assistant school principal, and unknowing invasion causer. And it was probably more therapy and talking than it was breakfast.

Small thing about having Ranko around in a professional capacity: she reads non-stop and lets people make her patient who has just woken up from a years-long coma faint from shocking news. Then again... what's more shocking? The fact that we were on a spaceship in orbit of Jupiter, or that her son turns into a bird? She handled the first one rather well, but the second... maybe it was a good thing that Ranko was studying Abnormal and Adaptive Psychology that week. And that? Actually not a joke. And that's why we adjourned to helping Ranko's mom with Thanksgiving dinner: because some things are best left to adults. Medical care being one of those.

And this brings us to Tom. Why Tom? Because that's where Wildcat and Tiger were. Seems they were on patrol early in the day and decided they couldn't take it anymore when they saw him going to the entrance in the Gap yet again. So they basically kidnapped the guy and alerted the Chee to what they were doing, and one of the Chee impersonated Tom AND his Yeerk for a while.

 

Entry thirty-seven?


I'd give the journal to Tom, or Wildcat and Tiger, but Melissa is putting Tom through his morphing paces and the other two are helping and giving pointers, so I can't. But here's what I know: they hauled Tom to a holding cell, explained to Thunder's security chief, Chenro, what the deal was, and then they kept him there in isolation until the Yeerk died the next morning from Kandrona starvation. And THEN they called Jill in to talk to Tom, because the guy had been utterly traumatized by a parasite in his head and needed to talk to someone, and since we've got three counselors on hand... Anyway, he frustrated her. Like a lot. And she left him in the care of ship security and went to have dinner while she thought it all through. That's how she showed up in the Vernen's kitchen where Dr. Vernen was letting Loren make name cards while I watched: frustrated.

To add to the fun, Tobias had teleported to New York to talk to Rachel (definitely my mom) about his mother having been found, and I don't know how she was able to slip away for five minutes, but she did, and she came back with him to see for herself. She came, she chatted for a minute, and then had to leave again because Lauren can run interference only so long before my grandmother the lawyer gets suspicious and starts to ask questions.

Oh, and in the middle of all this, Dr. Vernen's sister and her husband arrived with Peter. They're head of a covert military unit attached to Zone 91... which, yes, finally stopped studying the Andalite Toilet when they found out what it was. And they've come up in the world: now they've got damaged bug fighters to study to their heart's content. Or will... I'm confused and slightly swiss-cheesed about the timing.

So they arrived with Peter in tow... Peter, whose parents had died while on a mission two weeks earlier. And Ranko... well, she age-shifted from her normal appearance down to about the age she'd look were she human... in front of Loren. And got chastised by her mom, who had to recind the no-shocks around the former coma patient thing since it wasn't going to be upheld anyway.

Dinner... was uneventful, other than Sable and Ethan having to return to base for a catch-up briefing on the mission they were going on. I didn't get the full story on that. Maybe something changed and everybody was in need of updates? Hard to tell, and I didn't need to know, so I wasn't told.

Also, Dr. Vernen got paged for a patient, so she had to leave, too.

It's weird, but, until that night, I didn't quite know how lonely and isolated Tobias's life had been before. Oh, I know... he got trapped in morph, had spent months as a bird being their version of aerial reconnaisance because he no longer had to worry about that thing one calls a curfew, but... I mean before. Before walking through the construction site that night with four other people. I mention it because immediately following dinner, we, those who didn't have to leave and weren't paged for the medical, settled in to watch a movie. And Todias? Hadn't yet seen Alladin. (Remind me to show that to you when this is over, Toby. You'll... likely understand none of it, but cultural education has to start somewhere, right?)

And something else in all this: Jill took Loren to talk to Tom upon finding out that Loren herself had once been a controller temporarily on account of my mother's junior high school Assistant Principal being an idiot. Wish I'd been there for that. Not the Chapman being an idiot part, but rather Loren talking to Tom.

 

Entry thirty-eight?

Gotta go help save the world now. This... should be interesting. Have not ever gone full out with the illusion thing, but it's for a good cause, right? Right. At least there are no Taxxon morphs to worry about. Once was quite enough. Even when the Taxxons are on your side, they still kinda want to eat you and everything else in sight.

 

Entry thirty-nine...

I can't believe she spilled all of that information that way... am I allowed to cringe at the memory of myself as an eight year old, because I really, really want to. And... no. Don't wanna go into detail about that mission with the Taxxon morphs. I am quite happy not totally remembering it.

It was bad, huh?

Given that there was a very upset and somewhat crazy Sub-Visser whose host was formerly a burn victim involved in that mess... does "Duh" cover it? Because I think it should.

Yes, Ranko. That covers it. And yes, you are allowed to cringe as much as you please. You weren't the responsible party, though.

So the fact that I tagged along with my siblings and their friends...

Means you had an entertaining evening. Without the pseudo pot roast that wasn't.

Ah... Anyway, my intent on writing in this journal while they're all, minus Ket Halpak because Savage grounded her too, off saving the world from the not-so-evil-but-still-repulsive menace, was to explain what the plan is. The plan, such as it is, is really very simple: put on a show. Put on a big show, use all our talents, and scare the Yeerks so bad that giving up is the only alternative. It was in something Jake said once: that if it looks like a tried and true no-win senario, a yeerk will just give up where a human will march straight in guns blazing and probably die anyway.

Psychological warfare?

In a way. Put on a show, make it look worse than it really is, and force a cease fire that kills no one. And, if it's one thing we know how to do, it's that. Just wish Savage hadn't grounded us, because I really wanted to take part.

You are. We're guarding the Valley.

Hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks.

Any time.

 

A/N: It wasn?t as cut and dried as Ranko makes it seem above, but that?s a tale for another time. Additional material to follow.



Entry forty? (Toby)


Date: January 3, 2000 (early-cold)


A lot has happened since I got the journal back. Not totally certain where to begin or how to explain, so I leave it be for now.

They went home today. And the war? Over. Over... what will happen now? Don't know. Time will tell. And they promised to tell me more of story when next I see them as them, whatever that mean. It's confusing. Very, very confusing. Like Yeerks surrendering, and peace happening out of turmoil and suffering.

Time will tell where all this leads. For now... I have new baby brother. Don?t know if will be a Seer like me or normal. Odds are good that he isn?t. Time will tell.