GESB: Operation Time-Cops

[Myitt]

Hadrin looks down at his useless weapon and holsters it.

"Of course, Sub-visser," he says quietly, stepping past Zorish and walking down the ramp into the chilly New Mexico night air. 

<Oh, Jesus, man,> says Justin, <he really is going to kill us.>

<Only if we can't find that damned device,> says Hadrin flatly, strolling toward the rundown shack.  There are tire tracks and a few spools of rusted barbed wire next to one of the wooden, paint-flaked sides.  There is very little light, besides starlight and the dim glow of the cloaked ship's landing sphere.  Nothing that would be detectable as alien. 

Hadrin takes out a small human flashlight and shines it around the shack's perimeter, walking around it, then he brings up his personal holoscreen.  "Life signs still read nothing but local insect and mammal life.  No change in human count within a one mile radius."

He pushes the creaky door to the shack, finding it open.  The flashlight catches the light of some animal's beady red eyes, and Hadrin steps back, in spite of himself.  He irritably waves the holoscreen off and shines the flashlight around the single, cobwebbed room, as the prairie dog digs itself underneath the far wall. 

"Nothing but an old mattress and a barely used kitchen, sir," Hadrin calls, peering up above the shack's exterior.  "There is electricity."

He flips on the shack's single lightbulb, which comes to life hesitantly.  "Either our friend Gerald is extraordinary poor, or he hasn't been living here in quite some time.  It may not be his home at all, just a sort of way station.  This part of the country is known for abandoned, destitute homes.  Sir, perhaps I should contact him?"

[Chad32]

(I want to let Oss post before Claxter lands the ship.)

[Alic]

"I hope we get there soon. This flying in space thing really isn't my favorite thing to do. I prefer to be on the ground." Alic stood up and put what was left of her bottle away and within a couple minutes demorphed.
<Hopefully this will be quick and easy.> Alic sighed. Her hearts ached for the planet she had known as home, and if it weren't for Ossanlin, she probably wouldn't even leave the planet again. She turned her stalk eyes to Claxter. <How long until we land?>

((sorry it took so long.. they fired more supes at work.. so.. yah we've been really busy. i do have a 4 day weekend now though!!))

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin quickly activates the active camouflage as the nav-com brings the ship out of Z-Space at the correct location within Earth's solar system.

<Well, Myitt, technically this technology isn't even...how is it humans put it...?  "off the drawing board" yet.  I'm not even supposed to have it, it isn't fully tested, but I have my own connections that the Electorate kindly ignores.  There is a small possibility that we could all be receiving lethal doses of several select types of radiation right now, though the possibility is extremely small.>  Ossanlin grins at Myitt.

Ossanlin quickly modulates the shield matrix to absorb some of the heat energy as the Mirage starts cutting through the upper atmosphere.  The effect is that instead of a glowing orange beacon emanating huge heat signatures, only the ship's leading edge causes a small glow and a much smaller temperature reading, the rest remaining completely invisible.  Ossanlin glances from Myitt to Claxter.  <I believe, Warrior, that our destination is on the northern hemisphere of the planet...Myitt will correct me if I'm wrong.>  He looks back to Myitt.

[Terenia]

((Quick question: Are you guys going to take care of Sukohn or Zorish first?))

"Do it," Zorish orders, keeping his weapon trained on Hadrin the entire time. He wrinkles his nose in disgust against the dry, uninhabited smell of the shack. Hadrin is right - this place looks far from lived in, and that immediately raises alarm bells in Zorish's mind. For the moment, though, he ignores the itch to return to his ship.

"Search every corner of the building," Zorish says tersely, "I don't want anything to be overlooked."

[Myitt]

((Zorish first, then Sukohn, I guess?  If they don't reach Matthew quickly then the rebellion and Terenia are screwed, but if they don't reach Sukohn quickly the Animorphs are screwed...high stakes, anyone? xD ))

"Yes, the northern hemisphere also had an Imperial base, but it was shut down for some unknown reason," says Myitt.  "We need to follow the tracking signal from Matthew's holocube computer, because it won't do him much good to show up in Roswell empty-handed.  Here."  

She sends Ossanlin's computer system the signal for the Yeerkish computer sitting on Matthew's passenger seat as he continues to drive through the dusty New Mexico dawn.

"It figures," she adds dramatically, stepping close to the control panel and holding on tightly as the ship descends.  "I can't even get my Andalite friend to fork over technology.  Not even when it's potentially mutating our own cells."

---

Hadrin nods and contacts Matthew's holocube with his own, using a preset hack that makes the call look like it's being placed to "Gerald Kosmowski"'s cell phone number.  

"Gerald?  This is Justin.  I've arrived early, just wondering where you are.  Call me back, thanks," says Hadrin, ending the call.  He looks at Zorish.  "There's nothing much we can do but wait, sir."

<And hope we survive until Matthew gets here,> he adds silently, going back inside to search the interior of the shack.

---

Matthew speeds down the dusty road, slowing only when he sees the glow of Roswell coming up ahead.  No sense in getting pulled over when the fate of...of what?....

He had to wonder.  Matthew trusted Myitt and for crying out loud, her little band were a bunch of real goddamned aliens, and instead of infesting him they'd allowed him to help them.  Every nerd's dream, right?  

What am I doing? he thinks sourly to himself, sipping the last of the melted ice in his Mountain Dew cup.  The rebel group, some fugitive alien, the fate of the planet...I can't deal with this crap, I have a job and a life and math homework...I haven't even had a girlfriend, I can't die!

He jumps and nearly swerves as the holocube beeps.  Calming himself down, he taps at it and tries to focus on the road.  Hadrin's voice plays.

"Ha-...Justin!  Justin, I'm..."

Just a recording.  "Damnit, hang on, I'm almost there," Matthew says aloud, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel as he sits at a red light in downtown Roswell.  

"Myitt, where the hell are you guys?" he whispers, glancing up at the sky.  

[Chad32]

(We're going after Zorish first, but I have an idea for Marco to get partially in morph so he isn't infested, which will give the team a two hour timeframe to rescue him.)

<According to the coordinates, we should be landing quite soon.> Claxter said to both Alic and Oss. They were already below the cloud cover, and he could see New Mexico zooming in as he decended. More and more details of the desert became visible until he was able to find a suitable spot to land. He did a scan of the area, and found no Yeerk readouts, so he extended the landing gear and activated the short thrusters to slow down to a stop. <We are now on the planet's surface. I believe it's time to find the Human, and it would probably be best if the people with Human morphs see him. I doubt he's accustomed to Andalites. Though perhaps if I went along and aquired him and Tara, I could have myself a viable morph.>

*******************************

Cody ran after Marco and he ducked around whatever he could to prevent being shot. He started morphing as soon as possible, but Cody managed to catch up to him. He was half morphed into a fly when Sukohn finally caught up.

"I got him."

"That's good, but now he's in half morph. I can't infest him."

Cody hit Marco in the face hard enough to knock him to the ground. "Demorph unless you want some more!"

"No, I'd rather be punched in the face. Thanks." Marco said as he reeled from the blow. Cody moved to kick him.

"Will you calm down? I want him in good condition! I'll call the bugfighter to pick us up."

"How did you find out my identity?" Marco demanded.

"It's a long and hard to believe story."

"You know my friends are going to come and kick your butts, right?"

"Your friends are already taken." Sukohn said. It was a lie, but he didn't have to let Marco know. That was the first moment marco started showing fear. They carried him to a point and entered the cloaked bug.

"Just let me pound him until he demorphs. It will be fun."

"We don't have to do that. Marco will demorph on his own and become my voluntary host."

"When pigs fly." Marco said.

"If he doesn't, and decided to trap himself and die as a half bug, I could just take out my rage on his father."

"Don't you dare! You leave my dad out of this!"

"On the other hand, I could keep him safe and relatively happy on whatever ship or base they give me. I can be generous, or I can be cruel. You have two hours to decide which it's going to be." Sukohn said and left the compartment they had put Marco in. Dracons were trained at him, and hooked to morph detection devices.

"Give me one good reason why I can't just beat it out of him. We don't have two hours to spare."

"Because I said so." Sukohn said. Truthfully he just didn't like torture. He probably wouldn't even make good on his threat to harm Marco's dad. But as long as marco didn't know that, Sukoh  could have a voluntary morph capable host. Even better, this one wouldn't be a sociopath.

[Myitt]

((Chad, we're landing near Roswell, New Mexico, not Australia...and Matthew knows what Andalites are, though he's never seen one.  It would be best if the ship landed near the highway leading out of town that Matthew will be driving along, but before the spot where Zorish and Hadrin are.))

[Chad32]

(Why did I think we were going to Australia? Brain fart. I had it stuck in my mind we were going to Australia.)

[Myitt]

((No worries ))

"No need," says Myitt, looking down at her personal holoscreen.  "Matthew should be coming along this road in about five minutes, give or take.  You can check the Mirage's tracking systems, as well, if you'd like.  He won't be too shocked by Andalites, he knows you exist, after all.  Ossanlin, do you have the cube?"

[Terenia]

Zorish nods as he squints through the gloom. The single overhead light does little to illuminate the shack, although he does notice a few of Earth's creepy crawlies making their homes in the corners.

"You're probably right," Zorish consents, "let's wait in the ship, then. This place reeks."

<Almost as much as this whole thing reeks of a trap,> Tammy comments mildly.

<Yes. If a human found the Escafil Device and did not know what they had, why go to so much trouble to sell it in such an out of the way place? And if the human did know what they had, they could very well be working for the Andalite Bandits. Or this elusive Peace Movement we keep hearing rumors about.>

Zorish uses his Dracon Beam to gesture that once again, Hadrin should lead the way. The night is just beginning to fade, and the desert is beginning to take form. He can see just how expansive and desolate this place truly is. The perfect place for someone to disappear.

"Go," he orders, snarling a bit, his sense of urgency expressing itself through impatience.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin nods and steps over to pick up the cube from the deck.  He checks and rechecks that the device is operational and the remote detonator is set correctly.  <Yes, everything is good to go as the humans would say.>  Ossanlin commands the ramp to extend, thankfully Claxter had landed the ship between a couple of small rock formations, so the camouflage generator combined with the terrain made the ship invisible and unlikely to be stumbled across.  <I suppose you I might find myself able to part with perhaps a schematic of the generator cell Myitt...it might take your scientists some time to extrapolate and reproduce it.  The Electorate would have my hide if they found out.>  Ossanlin chuckles.  <No matter that I'm their so-called poster-boy.>

Ossanlin makes his way to the ramp carrying the cube and steps out into the chill night air of the desert, his hooves sending up small puffs of dust.  Such a strange and extreme climatic zone...both baking and freezing in such short intervals.  <You may want to tell him to stop near this rock-formation if we're to give him the device, Myitt.>

[Chad32]

<I really don't think it wise to give such technology away. Even if the rebellion is an ally.> Claxter said. Making friends with a few yeerks was one thing, but giving state of the art technology to someone was just not a good idea.

[Myitt]

Myitt follows them off the ship and smiles demurely.  "We can talk about it later, Ozzy," she says, with a brief glance at Claxter.  "I wouldn't want anyone going after your hide."  She pulls her jacket around her torso, crossing her arms.  "Jesus, it's cold out here." 

After jumping around in place a little she leans against the cold rock formation and takes out her computer, hailing Matthew.

---

Matthew drives through the east end of the city of Roswell, still asleep except for the few early morning workers starting their short commutes.

As he leaves the lights of civilization behind him, driving toward the pale pink desert dawn, Myitt suddenly appears next to him. 

At least, an image of her face.

"Hi, Matthew," she says, waving.

"Ahhhhh!" Matthew cries, nearly swerving again, clutching at his chest.  "Jesus, don't do that!"

"Sorry, I couldn't risk you missing this message," Myitt replies, glancing down at her fingernails.  "Up ahead there's going to be a rather large rock formation.  Your computer should register mine and alert you.  We'll be waiting there."

"Oh, good," Matthew replies snidely.  "Because there's only one rock formation in the whole desert, Myitt!"

"Don't worry, it's extremely accurate.  Down to around a centimeter or so.  You'll be fine.  See you in a few minutes."  She ends the transmission.

Myitt's image flickers off and Matthew focuses on the empty road, passing lots of black shadows of rock.

---

Hadrin nods and steps aboard Zorish's fighter, walking over to the secondary navigational panel and idly checking data.  He can't help but glance back at Zorish, who certainly doesn't appear pleased at having to wait.

<Good.  Watch him,> says Justin.  <I don't want that **** shooting us in the back.>

[Terenia]

Zorish follows Hadrin onto the fighter and closes the hatch. Immediately he returns to the primary navigational array and boots up the computer.

"I'm putting our shields and cloaking on full," Zorish says tersely, "we wouldn't want to scare our little human friend. If he saw a space ship on his way in, he might just turn right around again."

Zorish works with one hand, keeping his primary hand gripped around his weapon. As the time for the transaction inches closer he is becoming more and more edgy. He is clearly breaching protocol by investigating the situation himself instead of alerting Visser Three. In addition to that, everything seems just a little off. There is something inherently ominous about the setting, and it leaves Zorish with a sense of foreboding.

Discreetly, Zorish punches in an autopilot route for Terenia's location and orders the ship to depart for the pre-set coordinates on his verbal command only. At this point, he wants to get the Escafil Device and get out, and the autopilot will expedite the process.

<Then we get to attend to your dear sibling,> Zorish comments with a chuckle. Tammy does not respond, ignoring the jibe.