Leareth paces, eventually has to demorph, takes the opportunity to grab a quick nap - he can nearly always fall asleep whenever he wants, these days, war has a way of training that habit.

He's just made it out into the Dome area again when the Yeerk ship reappears in z-space and one of the mages on board contacts him with the communications-spell. 

     <Nayoki is landing and has the island set-commanded, go now. Can transmit further data on the system once in normal-space> 

Nayoki usually uses the interplanar version of the comms spell herself, it's fewer steps, but it's also exhausting, Leareth knows that part himself, and she might have had to set-command people over a pretty wide area. And they're all getting into the habit of conserving energy when they can, lately.

Leareth passes this on to Matirin. 

The Andalites move in.

It's a very pretty planet, albeit kind of monotonous, all that unbroken blue ocean. Though at least it comes in different shades, some closer to green or purple, maybe local plant life or something.

They promptly receive the promised transmission from the decoy Yeerk ship, currently being pursued by the expected Blade ship in orbit. It's less well-armed and shielded but it's faster. 

Sensor data plus what Nayoki transmitted up to them from the captured computers: the moon with the repair yard is supposed to have a nearly-complete new weapons system, some combination of the Leeran beam weapon technology and what the Yeerks already had. It's supposed to have much longer range and flexible aim than existing systems, because being moon-based means it can be set up with a far greater power supply. It shouldn't be fully functional just yet, and its staff aren't going to be familiar with the new system, and of course it's not mobile, but it will be some amount functional. Probably the best-shielded of their ships should try to take it out while the others engage the Blade ship? The Pool ship is minimally armed but it's also currently fleeing toward hyperspace-jump range, and probably someone should get on that. 

<I can do a Gate to the Pool ship> Leareth offers, wearily. He can aim it with sensor data and it's only a few thousand miles away, it should just barely be within his search-range for a normal Gate, if he uses the node-generator. <Should we go for the moon or send one of the others? We have the best shields, I think.> 

Matirin is distracted for a second confirming orders with the rest of the fleet. <We'll go> he says.

Leareth very quickly hustles together a party to board the Pool ship before it manages to flee too far and get out of his range. It's nonetheless a very straining Gate; he half-wishes he'd tried to do it with the artificial channel. They're still en route to the moon so he demorphs to human and sits down to rest for a few minutes, vaguely watching the sensor coverage, squinting to see if he can make out anything about the weapons system.

As they curve around the planet and approach, he tries to check in with Nayoki via the comms spell. 

...Huh. He's not getting through. It's not failing the way it would if she were dead, the spell is finding her, but she isn't picking up her end. 

She could be busy, or - 

Leareth is suddenly on his feet. :Matirin, I think we have a problem: 

< - yes?>

:Nayoki is not answering the communication spell - she is alive but not replying. And - that ship was not on the report we got, was it: 

It's one of the smaller, faster Yeerk ships, and it's just emerged from behind the shadow of the planet, so that their decoy ship fleeing the Blade ship is pincered between the two of them. 

- Also, now that they're close enough for better visuals, Leareth is pretty sure he doesn't see giant beam weapons on the moon. Presumably Matirin can notice this just as well. 

Matirin is not responding or looking at the Moon presumably because he is trying to get this relayed to all the other Andalites as fast as possible. 

Leareth reaches for the mage in command of his people over on the Pool ship, which is no longer fleeing and is now kind of just sitting there, in a very wide eccentric orbit around the planet. <Problem. Erroneous report from the ship. Suspect they have Nayoki, or at least have her shuttle and communications> 

     <- Noted> You can't really pick up emotional overtones with the comms spell, but it's still noticeably clipped. 

He can also relay his suspicions to a mage on the Yeerk decoy ship, just for redundancy, and then his mind is racing ahead, they can't let the Yeerks keep Nayoki - presumably she's either unconscious or her Gift-blocking set-command is in effect, in which case her morph-blocking set-command is also in effect - and she's in morph, and in either scenario can't demorph... If she's conscious and Yeerked then they'll know everything she does– 

It's absolutely not safe to go down there and extract her. He cannot do that. Maybe if he - 

The ship is suddenly not moving the way it should. First it accelerates in a random direction, which ends up being 'toward the planet', and then all acceleration vanishes entirely.

Then the artificial gravity inside flickers. It comes back in a fraction of a second, but still. 

- from their body language the Andalites are baffled and very scared. <You should either get off or morph something that can survive a crash> he tells Leareth, bounding towards the pilot's computers. <...and get a message to the fleet elsewhere, just in case.>

:I am going down to the planet: Leareth's mindvoice is clipped and level and containing hardly any emotion. :I can get Nayoki out - without going in myself - but only if I am within fifty miles of her: And not moving relative to her. He's pretty sure that if he Gates to underwater it won't be detectable, a small Gate probably doesn't have to be that deep, and he basically has to Gate to water, all the land is either tiny remote islands or Yeerk-held. 

He starts working on the Gate. Aim for ten metres underwater - that's easy, follow the planar-distance gradient - and ten miles out from land, so he doesn't risk hitting the landmass if he's off a bit, which he will be, this would be a lot easier if they were stationary relative to the planet or at least in a normal orbit, not careening out of control.

The jewel-blue ocean is getting closer. The artificial gravity is holding but most of the external sensors seem to have gone dead and all propulsion systems are still down. 

<- they physically attached millions of tiny machines to the ship> he tells Leareth tensely a minute later. <The shields would not protect against something physical and slow-moving relative to the ship - but it's such an extraordinarily specific strategy with such astoundingly expensive setup - I think they knew we were coming.> He is morphing.

Leareth goes rigid, nearly loses his half-completed Gate but manages to hang on, search search search, like putting a pin down on a map, just here.

:I recognize it. One of Mhalir's theoretical contingency-plans. Should be in the files. Decade ago, did not have tech for it then - suppose that changed - he did not think it likely... I think they were warned too:

And then his Gate goes up. It's an ordinary Gate, not the interworld kind, and can be seen through - the other side is water, startlingly crystal-clear, although by exerting his will on the Gate, Leareth can keep any of it from leaking across.

For a second he considers if Matirin should come, he's on a crashing ship - but he can't hold it long and the ship might not crash and his Gate might be detected - or the second one when he grabs Nayoki, in which case he'll be ten miles offshore with Yeerks after him. 

:I will contact the fleet: he adds, and dives through. 

The Gate snaps down. 

The ship is still out of control. It's hitting atmosphere now; the shields are holding fine against the heat from re-entry. 

It is probably going to be a decidedly unpleasant landing, but as long as the Dome itself survives (and it should) they can emerge from cockroach afterwards in one piece. 

If the Dome does not survive he remembers reading that it takes cockroaches 40 minutes to drown and perhaps during those someone'll think of a plan, right now while communicating Leareth's last message to sixty different people it is unsurprising that he's not really thinking of one.

The water is pleasantly cool, not cold. The pressure makes his ears pop and his sinuses ache, and Leareth claws his way toward the surface - 

The waves are really big. It's windy. He's on target, though, about eight miles off-shore, on the side of the continent where the landing-port is. Nayoki should be in range. 

It's very hard to focus on a Gate when he keeps getting smashed in the face by wind-driven spray, losing every other breath to it. There's probably magic he can do about it, but not at the same time as a Gate-search imitation of Fetching. (He hypothesized it ought to be possible; it's almost exactly the reverse of what he did to find Matirin on Nerefir's ship, except that he'll be making Nayoki herself the 'other threshold', and when the spell completes it should yank him to her. 

...This is really not working at all. Leareth is a good swimmer but it's taking a lot of his attention to stay at the surface. He can't do a complicated spell at the same time as that. 

His orca morph will handle the water better, but doesn't have Gifts... 

He's never tried a composite-morph like that before, but apparently dolphins are very smart? And might, theoretically, have big enough brains that some Gift-centres could be smushed in there. Orcas are bigger, too, plausibly bigger brainmass, he can't remember if he ever looked this up - 

He'll have to do it the way he did the Andalite one the first time - orca morph, then partial demorph and bring Gifts back first. Which won't get him all the extras, or a Vanyel mage-gift, but maybe he can get that with practice once he has Nayoki out and safe. 

...

Morphing while mostly holding his breath is very miserable but eventually it's over. The orca body is much happier about the situation. It wants to hunt; there are movements far below. Leareth shoves that instinct down. 

Careful, slow, controlled, start to demorph but this first... 

He doesn't get it on the first try, but manages to reverse the demorph and get fully back to orca without having to start over, and on the second attempt, Leareth is now an orca with Gifts. 

He starts working on the modified Gate. 

A thousand miles away, the Dome ship hits ocean at terminal velocity, Dome-side first. 

The shields take a lot of the impact, but not everything. Artificial gravity is down; the emergency power is still running. The Dome creaks, the entire ship is making pretty concerning noises, but, for the moment, it's still holding atmosphere inside. 

Without any means of propulsion or antigravity, the ship is denser than water, and, within thirty seconds, rapidly sinking. 

Marian is not screaming but this is mostly because she's focusing on getting air into her lungs. She can't morph. A couple of the mages on board also can't morph, and were shielding themselves and her, and it seems like they're alive - although her left arm is really unhappy, it doesn't hurt - yet - but something isn't working...

Focus. They're alive. Figure out what to do next... 

...actually no she's just panicking now. 

His cockroach senses barely detect any of this; he learns it from relays from the computer, The Dome, the computers report, would be holding fine against the ocean, but also the robots are trying to rip it apart. 

<Can you Gate out> he asks one of the mages who doesn't have morph.

:Gate to where? I can't - aren't we thousands of miles from land, and I've never even been here before...: The mage has normal Gate skill, even unusually advanced, he can Gate from photographs and a map, and manage eight hundred miles, but he's not seeing how that helps them. :I can't do the kind on thin air that Leareth does: 

The Dome, no longer protected by the ship's shields, is being ripped at by robots and also the pressure on it from outside is rapidly increasing as the ship sinks deeper. There's a crack developing. 

Much closer to land, Leareth completes his Gate. 

And Nayoki is there, flailing and then going limp, as she unexpectedly finds herself ten metres underwater with an orca's jaw closing - very gently - onto her arm.