Chapter 6
I was 19 years old. I had been training in the special ops team for a year and had excelled. I was the youngest person on the team by at least two years, and it showed. But I had learned to use all sorts of weapons. I traded in my 4 foot sword for a 9mm. Stern was an excellent sergeant and I had already blown past everyone in the unit. We had yet to hear about another alien encounter, but still we trained every day, for long hours, and with hard work. One morning, at 0600 I arrived to where we usually began our training but found nobody there. I looked around for any of the others, but found nobody. I looked over at the clock and waited until 0615 before I walked over to the mess hall. I walked in and everyone was huddled around the small television that was in the corner of the hall.
“Nabet!” I heard from behind me. I turned toward the voice. It was a general that I had seen only a few times. He had transferred from another base a few weeks before.
“Sir, yes sir!” I responded and saluted.
“I need to speak with you for a moment private!” I followed him to his quarters. “Have a seat soldier!” he gestured toward his bed. I took a seat and looked around the room. In one corner next to a bookshelf was a hot tub filled with brown sludgy water. “Nabet, I hear that you’re the best soldier that this base has!”
“Sir, I’m not so sure if that’s true. I do alright, but I’m not the best,” I responded still looking over at the hot tub. I had a weird feeling about it.
“Nabet, put your head in the hot tub!” the general said to me. I turned toward him and he was aiming the same kind of weapon that had been aimed at me the night Tyler was killed.
“Woah, calm down sir,” I said.
“Your head in the tub, now!” he ordered.
“So your one of them,” I said, thinking back on the conspiracy with the aliens.
“Ah, so you did see the news report. I thought that since I didn’t see you there you had missed it. Yes Nabet, I am a Yeerk,” he said. Yeerk? What the hell was he talking about? “Your head soldier!” he ordered again. I headed toward the pool of sludgy water and got down on my knees. Then with cat-like reflexes, I drew my M9 pistol and fired a bullet between his eyes before he had a chance to squeeze his trigger. I walked over to his body and picked up his weapon. I stepped outside and looked around for others. I saw Stern and ran over to him.
“Nabet! Did you hear what happened?” he asked me quickly.
“Sir, no I did not. But the new general just tried to kill me,” I replied.
“Damn it, he’s one of them.”
“One of who!” I shouted, irritated that I knew less than everyone else.
“A Yeerk. Come to L3, the rest of the team is there. I’ll explain everything.”
I followed him to building L3 and sat down at a table with the rest of the special ops team.
“Alright team,” Stern began, “General Doubleday will be here shortly, but I think that it is time that I debrief you. For over a year we have prepared for a war with aliens that we were not sure actually existed. Well guess what. They do. Many of you have seen the news reports on T.V. the aliens have declared full out war on us. They have better technology then us, and they seem to be able to be anyone. I have found out from a reliable source that these aliens are called Yeerks. In their natural forms, they are little slugs, you wouldn’t think twice about them if you saw one on the street. But these slugs, they enter your brain, and they control you. Completely. They read your minds and behave just like you would. A member of what is known as the ‘Yeerk Peace Movement’ explained all of this to me yesterday. Please give a warm welcome to Kyle Richmon and Iptu 763,” Kyle Richmon walked in and my eyes went wide. It was my friend from high school that I had seen the night Tyler died.
“Everything that Stern is telling you is true. This is a Yeerk,” he opened his palm and put it next to his ear. A large grey slug crawled out of his ear and into his palm. “I now have free will of my body. When I put Iptu back into my ear, he will control me again.” He put the slug back into his ear.
“Traitor!” yelled Felicia, the girl sitting next to me. Kyle lifted the same kind of weapon that I now had concealed in my pocket and fired it at her. She let out a soft scream and fell to the floor.
“I had it set on the lowest setting. She’ll be unconscious for a while, keep her in a safe place for 3 days and watch her. Make sure she goes nowhere near a Yeerk pool.” Kyle then explained what a Yeerk pool was and I just sat there in awe.
General Doubleday then walked through the door. Everyone saluted “At ease soldiers. Now, you men are going to be the first to join my new unit. Up until now, this special operations team had no name. Well guess what. You are all now ATF-1, Alien Task Force One. Congratulations soldiers, we meet in front of the base in one hour to relocate to our new base of operations. Gather your things and don’t be late, we will not be returning.” General Doubleday turned around and walked out of the building. We all left and gathered all of our things. We went over to the new base which was located in a pit carved in a mountain. Very strange looking. When we arrived there were more people there that the general had gathered from other units of other armies. For a few weeks we were trained in new forms of combat and strategy from Doubleday himself. About a month later, we were all in the conference room and Doubleday was showing us a large map of the city that the Yeerks had decided to use as their home. A dragonfly landed on the table. I don’t know why, but I was drawn to it, so I kept looking. Then the dragonfly started to get larger.
“What the…” I said.
“General!” Steve yelled from across the table.
“MP’s! MP’s, on the double,” Kerry shouted.
“Draw your weapons!” Ksenia said.
I looked as the dragonfly grew and changed, and the features that I could almost make out looked a lot like Jake Berenson. “Don’t shoot!” I shouted.
“General Doubleday,” Jake said when he changed completely from the dragonfly, “My name is Jake.”
“Get him!” the general yelled. Several MP’s grabbed him and dragged him off to a holding cell.
“General, this is a mistake!” I heard Jake yell as he was dragged off toward the cell. A few moments later, Jake reappeared as the dragonfly on the table again. Once again he was tackled to the floor and taken to the holding cell. Once again he appeared on the table in front of us.
“General, why don’t you stop being stupid and listen?” he asked. They took him back to the holding cell. For the fourth time in 10 minutes Jake reappeared in front of us.
“All right, Mr. Alien, what have you got to say to me?” General Doubleday asked Jake.
“First: I’m not an alien. I’m a human with alien technology…” Jake continued to speak about how he would hurt the Yeerks and possibly win the war. All he needed was us to provide a diversion.
“He can’t leave here alive!” Colonel Marks yelled. He then looked over at two more soldiers who levelled their weapons along with him. The general argued with them and a wolf jumped out of nowhere and attacked them. The meeting had turned into a battle. An explosion rocked the entire room and Jake had taken a hard hit. He was bleeding badly and a gorilla came and grabbed him. He dragged Jake and Doubleday to safety. Several people ran out of the building and I did as well. I escaped before I succumbed to any real damage. The next day Doubleday called us to a new Headquarters and held us for three days to make sure that we weren’t infested by Yeerks. Those of us that passed the test were brought to a new meeting. Doubleday then explained each of our missions in the coming battle.
Several days later, the battle began. Jake and his band of misfits who could transform into animals, the couple of hundred soldiers from ATF-1, a handful of reptilian aliens called Hork-Bajir that weren’t infested by the Yeerks, and one blue centaur with a long bladed tail called an Andalite against an army of advanced aliens, with countless soldiers, aliens, spaceships, and weapons. This was a suicide mission and we all knew it. We gathered into our divisions and braced ourselves for what would probably be certain death. The pilots all got into their planes and flew off. I lifted my M16 and ran out to battle with my fellow soldiers. Jake needed us to provide a distraction so that he could enter the Yeerk ship and take them out from the inside. It was a genius plan. Unfortunately it meant certain death for us. Several Hork-Bajir charged at us. We all fired our weapons at them as they advanced at us. Lasers fired all around and several soldiers fell. I just kept shooting despite the fact that all of my fellow soldiers were dropping like flies. Out of nowhere several large centipedes came out of the earth and attacked the advancing Yeerks. Now the battle was beginning to turn in our favour. The planes overhead were being destroyed by the Yeerk ships. A Hork-Bajir ran towards me and tackled me toward the ground before I could fire. I struggled to get free but couldn’t. Just one swipe and I was finished. ROAR!!!! A lion charged and knocked the Hork-Bajir off of me.
“Thanks,” I said getting up and putting a bullet in the alien’s head.
<No problem,> the lion responded and we kept fighting.
“Retreat! The kids are on the ship. I repeat, the kids are on the ship, retreat!” I heard from my radio. I ran away and watched the ship fly into the air. It then began firing lasers at all of the animals in the battle. Incinerating the poor kids that only wanted to help the fight. It was disgusting to watch so I headed back into the base. I fell down, and fell asleep. By the time I woke up, the war was over. The kids had succeeded, losing only one of the six that snuck into the ship.
