Then it's back to picking up only a blip that might be noise.

Good, that covers all the things Leareth had wanted to check. He takes apart that Gate and then transports himself back to the ship-camp location and flops down on the dead leaves under an oak tree, exhausted but very pleased, waiting for the ship to get back from Lake Evendim so he can go over their results. 

Matirin is really happy too! "I think that we can safely do a Gate for the shuttle in the middle of the ocean; they're unlikely to detect it and likely to dismiss it as noise if they do. Then we can get the shuttle to shore somewhere that has Earth's internet and get an appraisal of how bad things are. And maybe set up shielding somewhere on land, so that in future we can Gate into that location without leaving any signal."

"Yes, I agree that we should immediately set up shielding. How many people fit comfortably in the shuttle? I think we ought bring through one shuttlefull, choose a base - ideally underground since that will mean less magical shielding is required - and then I can do a concealed, shielded Gate to bring over everyone else. And probably I ought teach a few other mages to do it so it is not entirely bottlenecked on myself, though. I would like to minimize that until we find out if Nayoki can do blocks that prevent Yeerks from accessing particular memories. - By the way, she does think that she can place conditional set-commands - which, as we saw before, also affect a Yeerk since they are locked out of the relevant brain pathways. So if they do manage to capture any Gifted people alive, the set-command would activate and could block access to their Gifts as soon as a Yeerk is in their head." 

"Oh, good. The shuttles fit four Andalites comfortably, or of course an arbitrary number if we're in small morphs, I'd imagine they could take ten, twelve humans. I would be inclined to teach one or two others who will be staying behind, just in case somehow our shuttle is immediately shot down. What does Nayoki need to run that test -"

"She can do it with the morphed Andalite again, but I will not be entirely confident of it until she has tested it with a real, captured Yeerk." 

He nods in agreement. "With Thoughtsensers I'd expect we can find and capture some pretty promptly once we're set up for operations on Earth at all."

"Yes, I expect so. Can your shuttle move undetectably to Yeerks? I do not have any Thoughtsensers with reliable range greater than a hundred miles." 

"It seems likely to me. We do not know of any way they could detect it. But we do not have reliable intelligence on their most recent capabilities, so we design our shields against the directions we expect their sensors to take, and are not always correct."

Nod. 

"We will of course minimize risk as much as possible but throwing magic shields around the shuttles as well wouldn't hurt."

"I should test to make sure your existing sensors do not detect anything from them, but yes, I had been considering that. I can delegate testing it to another of my people, fortunately." 

Nod. "We'll know more as soon as we're there, but my priorities loosely speaking are to make sure the situation hasn't devolved into open war between the local humans and Yeerks, make sure if it has that the Yeerks have all of the nuclear weapons, and if it hasn't to capture some Yeerks for further testing and to learn more of the strategic situation from."

"What are 'nuclear weapons?' I do not think that has come up yet." 

"It hasn't." Matirin is frowning assessingly at him. "They are weapons that destroy cities. The humans have them. They have used them only rarely in their history, but they'll use them against the Yeerks, if the situation devolves into open war, and I think we can win so I want to make sure they don't shatter half their own planet by the time we do it."

Leareth flinches visibly. 

( - a tower going up like a candle, in magma and flame - a wave of unleashed destruction racing out across the continent - mile upon mile of devastation, cities slagged to glass, fields full of twisted, wrong flora and monsters that were once livestock - ) 

"That - gods - can we just take them? Drop them in deep space if they cannot be destroyed?" Leareth shivers a little. Possibly he should try to explain the strength of his reaction. "This - our world - had a Cataclysm two thousand years ago. Where a weapon intended to destroy cities was used, and - destroyed so much more than that. The land is still damaged to this day. It would be - the worst of tragedies, if that happened preventably to another world..." 

"I know. It will be really conspicuous if they mysteriously go missing but we'll see what we can do. They really do only destroy cities, though, the yields are fairly well known and the humans have both done tests and used them in wartime. The Yeerks will have weapons that can destroy the whole world but I intend to take those out first."

...Nod. 

And they can finish the last battery of tests and preparations.

First thing the next morning, all the Valdemaran Herald-Mages with the exception of Vanyel, Leareth's mages, and Princess Karis all obtain a ride hundreds of miles south, to the city of Sunhame, currently in the hands of the corrupt Karsite priesthood. 

Savil doesn't need to Gate after all, Leareth's borrowed mages can somehow do a four-person concert Gate that makes it a lot easier on all of them. She guards the temple instead, holding off priest-mages, too-young, barely more than children. Valdemaran troops flood into the city. 

General Lissa Ashkevron rides at the Princess' side, directing her army via her partnered Mindspeaker. (Herald Marius is dreaaaaamy but that can wait until after the battle.)

She misses her brother, and she's worried about him being all alone in Haven - well, not alone-alone, Randi and Tran and Shavri are all there, they decided against pre-emptively moving the government to the Karsite border since in a pinch they can ask for a shuttle ride. But he's not here. 

Probably it's for the better. He reacts badly to Gates and that sure is a lot of Gate. 

Savil misses her nephew too, but she doesn't have a lot of attention to spare for it. 

It's a long morning, and there are significant casualties to Valdemar's army and a few Herald deaths, but they don't lose any of their mages.

Three of Leareth's mages are badly injured when part of the temple collapses for confusing reasons, it was taking hits from the current administration's army and mages but not that hard. It seems like poor form to lose the people Leareth lent them as a huge favour, so Savil directs a Healer to them and then has the Mindspeech-relay Herald boost to the Valdemaran border and pass on a message asking if the Andalite shuttle can come back and get them. Savil heard they have better medical treatments that at least somewhat work for humans, and they presumably want the volunteers for their upcoming war with the Yeerks to survive. They can clear a perimeter around some flat ground for landing, the shuttle can be invisible from the air and thus avoid coming under the attack of the locals, and Savil won't ask them to contribute in any other way even though it'd be so helpful right about now. 

The Andalites will update Leareth about this and send for his mages. 

Honestly this was really predictable. Leareth thanks the Andalites and makes sure all his Healers staging by the ship are on hand for when they arrive. 

:I should have expected something like this: he complains to Cayaldwin, returning to his Gate-tests; right now he's focusing on getting the spell more efficient, so he can get a shuttle to Earth and still have energy left to fight if necessary. :Vkandis holds a great deal of power in Karse and does not like me. I suppose He decided to accept my help and then murder my people as soon as they were finished with the Gate and more expendable to the invasion: