"Could be." 

He flies. Tensely. 

"Think the Andalites are good for their word if he's dead?"

Leareth comes back when he dies but that isn't widely-known and he'd prefer it stay that way. "I - think so. His people are still loyal to him. But, I am not as sure as I am with him alive. Four of five odds on it, perhaps." 

<Do we have anything else from the ship that jumped in.>

           <No.>

<Do we know that there was ever anything from them in the first place.>

          <No.>

He heads back over to the medical bay. <Do you have a guess about when he'll be conscious.>

He looks to the Healers; they're the ones with magic instincts for that sort of thing.

"...Not sure. Probably by tomorrow. He might surprise me and wake up sooner but - it actually seems like a bad idea for him to be conscious while his lungs still aren't working, he would panic a lot about it." 

<Thank you.> He paces.

Either they'll hear from Mhalir or they won't, and if they don't it's probably because he's dead, and there's some well-cloaked ship out there somewhere but they don't know where and they don't know what kind and all their hopes - or at least most of them - are on this Dome ship, right now...

They reach D.C. 

Mhalir takes the shuttle down still cloaked and lands two blocks away and waits a minute to see if they come under attack before approaching. Cautiously. He really wishes he had one of Leareth's Thoughtsensers right now. 

He's so scared. And upset and angry, at the possibility that Leareth is dead. Even if he'll come back, still...

Is anything in particular going on with his people here. 

Their last update is from the Pool ship, thirty minutes ago; it was that Mhalir was unreachable and the Pool ship was temporarily under the command of sub-Visser Twelve, who wanted him found and who was jumping the Pool ship out in the meantime in case the Andalites had betrayed them or were about to. They've been nervous. Watching the news. The Americans are pretty annoyed to have had alien shadow wars cause major disasters in two of their cities in the space of a week. They are demanding apologies and reparations and request nicely that the aliens hang out somewhere...else? Not downtown in major urban areas?

That's so reasonable of them. (This particular house is outside the urban area and so Visser 3 feels less bad about it.) 

He explains the situation from his perspective. He's pretty sure the NYC strike was an attempt on Leareth's life; he doesn't know yet if it was successful but he thinks Matirin would. He's - nine of ten sure that the attempt on him was an internal coup. Maybe more sure than that. He can't see why the Andalites would; it wasn't at all in their interest for him to be dead, and he can't imagine them doing it without Leareth's blessing and risking losing that alliance, without Leareth they're no longer in a position to win the war at all. It was, however, very much in the interest of the Yeerk factions unhappy with his surrender for him to be - unavailable. And for the Andalites to lose access to Leareth. 

He wants them to attempt to open communications with the Dome ship; he doesn't know if they can do that from here or if someone needs to take the shuttle elsewhere. 

They can do it from here; what does he want to say?

He takes a deep breath. "...I want to inform them I am alive and suspect a failed coup attempt, probably led by someone on the Pool ship although I am not sure. I want to ask if they know whether Leareth was in New York, and if so, his status now. I want to convey that I intend to keep to the surrender terms even if the ship proves to be Yeerks; I suspect the communication I supposedly received could have been entirely fraudulent– actually, the message is probably decrypted now, I was flying so I did not try to read it..." He looks to his lieutenant. 

"It's a status of forces update, supposedly from Anati, in keeping with the uncoded message. If it's a fraud it was meant to survive five minutes of inspection."

"I can inspect it further in a minute. It would make sense that a real update might have inspired the coup attempt. Someone was certainly interfering in my communications with Leareth, falsifying his replies - I am not even sure he received our messages at all, in fact..." Frown. "You should ask Matirin if he received an update from Leareth, and convey the message I received, along with my suspicion that it might also have been faked." 

They send this off.

Matirin replies that he is relieved to hear that Mhalir is well, and that the Andalites remain committed to the peace as well. The Dome ship will arrange to pick Mhalir up, if he thinks he would be safer with them.

He - dithers for a while about whether to say that Leareth is alive. The coup planners are presumably desperate, now, this is not the sort of thing it's safe to fail at doing - 

- probably better for them to believe they failed totally and that there's no point in even trying to kill Leareth, who can survive orbital strikes with no warning, barely inconvenienced -

"There was indeed a simultaneous attack on Leareth in New York. It killed some of his staff, but he survived. We received a communication at 19:27 GMT to the effect that you'd received a transmission from the ship claiming it was yours. Leareth is presently recovering from his injuries but I will present the communications you received when he wakes up, so we can check against the ones he received and sent."

Mhalir tries to make up his mind. It's - still a gamble, relying on the Andalites here, when he's not yet absolutely sure. But it is in fact true that he's not verifiably safe on Earth.

- also he's worried about Leareth, and while it won't actually help to be in the same location as him, he expects to feel more comfortable if he knows more. 

He replies and suggests a (different) location for a Gate. It's not ideal since he'll need to fly there again, but it means he doesn't need to risk a shuttle transit to orbit when some other Yeerk craft aligned with the coup attempt, and also it requires the cooperation of Leareth's people. Which he thinks is much less likely in a world where the Andalites' story to them isn't lining up. 

While he waits for a reply on that, he explains his current guesses on the situation to his staff here, all of whom he trusts quite far, and says that he's delegating them full authority to investigate the attempt on him and on Leareth, though of course they should stay in contact with him to the extent they can. 

He passes the location on to Leareth's people and sends a message confirming a pickup there.

Mhalir heads out. 

He's so stressed and he's not sure going up to the Andalite ship will - help - but at least it's committing to a plan, and then he can figure out what happened. The more he pokes at it the less it makes sense that the situation would play out this way if engineered by the Andalites rather than a rebel Yeerk faction...

He's alive, Leareth is alive, the situation is salvageable. Except, of course, for the more-likely-than-not-Yeerk reinforcements. - Are they more likely than not? He would have expected further back-and-forth communications from them...

A mage Gates down, as requested. 

Mhalir has some of his people hang back and watch in case it turns out to be a trap, but he doesn't think it is. 

He Gates up to the Dome ship. 

<Visser Three.> Matirin fixes several eyes on him. <I am glad that the attempt on your life was unsuccessful.>

"So am I. Thank you for offering to transport me here. Where is Leareth?" 

<He is in the medical bay. His injuries were quite serious, which I preferred not to communicate in text. They expect him to be awake tomorrow.>

"Oh. That - makes sense. He will recover, though, right?"