Animorphs Reborn #1 The Sanctuary (Sequel to Animorphs #54)

Animorphs Reborn #1 Chapter 1

We were racing toward the Blade ship, black as night, although that only made it invisible.

Tssssseeeeeewwww!

They were firing at us. I found it strange that the sound of the Dracon cannon sounded so small, so distant, compared to its power. It was a Dracon Cannon after all, firing at us at full power.

I so wasn't used to space battles.

My name is Marco. You may have heard of me. What am I kidding, you have to have heard of me, to have seen me. I'm famous, I have my own TV show. Had my own TV show, anyway. I know, I know, you believe you are not worthy to talk to someone as good looking as I am, but I will allow it. Just once.

Yes, I am Marco the Animorph. Saviour of Earth and the rest of the universe from the Yeerks. The Yeerks are a parasitic of large slimy slugs. They crawl into your ears, and bada-bing, bada-boom, you're their total slave. You have no control. We have been travelling through space for months, trying to find the only remaining Yeerks from the Earth invasion, and found them we have. We thought they had Ax, an Andalite, one of the good guys, like us. He was stranded on Earth with us, the only surviving member of the Dome Ship he and his older brother Elfangor was on, before it crash landed on Earth. Ax joined the five of us, five human children, to help us battle the Yeerks. We had no experience, and he was only an Andalite aristh himself, a cadet. His brother Elfangor gave us one advantage though, he gave us the power to morph. So we had 6 morph-capable guys on our side, versus thousands of parasitic slugs.

It's a surprise to find that we won, in the end. Even the Andalites gave up on us.

Sadly, like in all wars, we lost people. We lost the auxilary Animorphs, 17 disabled children that we gave the morphing power to, and Rachel. Rachel...

She was Jake's cousin. Jake. The Animorph's leader, and my best friend. Or at least he used to be. After the war ended things got a little rough. We named our ship after her, too. In her memory. It was just like she used to be. Reckless, frightening, strong. Most of all beautiful.

She was also Tobias' girlfriend, and Jake gave the order that resulted in... the loss. That makes him unstable, which could be a problem.

Lucky for us, or maybe not, Tobias couldn't do anything right now, nobody could except Menderash. Sure, we'd all had a few months practice flying the Rachel but even me, with the best video game skills in the world was nothing compared to Menderash. It was solely up to him.

Because of the circumstances, we still had a team of six. I guess Jake thought that was a lucky number. But only half of us were from the original Animorphs. We had the leader, the scout, and the attractive one. Okay, maybe I was just the tactician, but can you deny these good looks? Still, it never felt right without the other three. The warrior, the hacker and the moral one. We would never get the warrior back, we knew that. We were looking for Ax now, taken by the Blade ship, or that was the only info we had. It looked like something had happened to him though, he didn't appear to be on the Blade ship anymore. Our morals were left behind at Earth.

Jake told Cassie about the mission, about Ax. But he didn't let her come, someone had to stay home and watch the kids. Jake and Cassie really care about each other, or at least they used to. Cassie was with someone else when we left, sometimes I wondered if Jake was ever nervous about Cassie moving on. I wasn't even sure how he felt about her anymore. Me, his supposed best friend. And I just never knew anymore. Even after being on the Rachel for most of a year. These days he was getting more like his old self, but he seemed lost without Cassie. Man, that sounds corny, but you see, Jake always went to Cassie for advice back during the Yeerk invasion, and now he doesn't have her support.

We had replacements though, ugh, that sounds so cold, but it's true. Jake brought two of the anti-terror agents he was training with us, Santorelli and Jeanne. The sixth member was a nothlit. He was an Andalite, but he morphed human and purposely stayed over the 2 hour limit in order to help us find Ax. He's called Menderash, and he was the only Andalite from Ax's ship to return and report he was missing. In a way he lost everything, he can't even morph anymore, but he had to do it in order to come with us. You see, the Blade ship disappeared into an area called Kelbrid space. Kelbrid space consists of planets and enitre solar systems that a mysterious race called the Kelbrids controls. We know nothing of the Kelbrids. Even the Andalites knew nothing, all they knew is that they had a huge empire, and that the Andalites and Kelbrids had made a treaty. A treaty that would result in open war across the universe if any Andalites went into Kelbrid space. We had to cover for Menderash, so that he could come with us. Be the new hacker.

Santorelli was a few years older than us, the Origimorphs. Original Animorphs. He was a U.S. Army Ranger, so he was pretty good in combat situations, well, situations with guns and humans. I didn't know how he'd fare in an Animorphs grade fight, morphs and all. We had been practicing and Jake had kept up his lessons with him and Jeanne, helping to get them ready to use morphs in battle. Santorelli seemed really smart. I mean, like an Einstein or something. He didn't talk much, but when he did, man it blew me away. He was always paying attention when Menderash was explaining some Andalite technology, and he understood it all.

Now Jeanne. She was beautiful. And mean. And I knew that I didn't have a chance to be with her. Ever. It's always the good looking babes that think they're better than me, and whenever we go into Animorph mode, I never got any sympathy from the ladies. She was French, and she had this amazing accent that I just loved to tease her for, that probably didn't help my chances though, but it was still fun.

So there was the six of us. Five of us doing nothing but gawking at the large viewing screens.

Tssssseeeeeewwww!

Yeah, I hate space battles.