:He's in my range and says he's coming: the terrified but now-hopeful mage relays to Matirin. 

<Can someone gather all the morphed Andalites in one place so we can go through quickly if he gets a Gate up.>

One of Leareth's surviving mages has Fetching and Thoughtsensing too - he also has morph and is himself currently a cockroach, cockroaches do not have Gifts, but he's also in a supply-closet which he thinks is holding atmosphere still, not the Dome. He starts demorphing. 

Leareth thinks he has a bearing and an approximate distance now. He starts working on a Gate. He's exhausted, but this one is shorter range. 

- the Gate goes up - 

Leareth is immediately swimming downward, stretching ahead with orca-Gifts. :Matirin: 

<We're trying to gather everyone in one place for you, how long can you hold it.>

:...Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. To which room? You have humans without morph, right -: Which means he can't afford to Gate them more than ten, maaaybe twenty metres under, cockroaches can probably tough that out fine but humans won't make it to the surface alive. 

<Yes.> He names them. <Medical bay.>

The Fetcher is not in the medical bay, he's in a supply-closet, but the mage in the medical bay can do a Gate from one room in the ship to another, and they can get all the humans in one place, collecting some people huddled in a conference room as well, and then the Fetcher starts feeling for the morphed-Andalite minds, and Fetching their cockroach bodies to his hand. It takes a lot of concentration but it's not hard, objectively speaking. 

Leareth hangs ten metres underwater, orca tail swaying slowly back and forth. :Are you almost ready: 

<Yes.>

Leareth waits for the go-ahead, and then he raises a Gate. It has to be a human-sized one because there are humans without morph in there. Which lets him put the other end of it on the doorway he remembers perfectly, at least. 

It's objectively speaking the easiest Gate he's done so far, but he's so, so tired. The water didn't feel cold before but it does now. 

The Gate goes up. :Hurry: 

Nayoki surfaces to breathe, blowing a spume of mist, and then dives back to hover by Leareth, worried. 

The Andalites are all cockroaches because otherwise the Gate would have to be even bigger so they will have to assume the humans have this handled.

Marian has a whole lot of cockroaches shoved into her pockets! (Scrubs have lots of pockets). Honestly this is the least weird and/or terrible thing she's had to do today. 

She looks dubiously at the underwater side of the Gate for half a second - the threshold is also wavering concerningly - and then dives through. 

The humans follow. 

Leareth is trying to ask Matirin if they're through yet, but for some reason Mindspeech is incredibly hard. He tries morph-thoughtspeech, maybe that's easier. 

<Matirin, is -> 

And then the Gate destabilizes and crashes down, and everything fades to black. 

Nayoki is thinking so many swearwords in her head right now. Earth has some very good ones. 

:Leareth drained himself unconscious: she informs everyone. Which is six humans with various Gifts, none of whom are good swimmers, one human with pockets full of cockroaches who is a good swimmer but not Gifted, and an unconscious orca. 

She tries to nudge him toward the surface but he's a lot bigger than her right now. 

For fuck's sake. She grabs all of them in a force-net of mage-energies and hauls for the surface, hard. 

It sounds like there's a problem! Years of lifeguarding training do not mean she knows how to drag an orca up through ten metres of water. Marian hopes the cockroaches can hold onto her pockets, and swims upward. 

Cockroaches are good at both of holding on to her pockets and being fine in circumstances that are not remotely their normal ones. They are hanging out in good health.

One of them is very upset. <Is he drowning?>

:He is in morph: Which is kind of its own giant problem, she hasn't been doing a good job of keeping track of how long it's been, but. :I think orcas can go longer than humans without air. If we get him to the surface–: This seems to be taking forever. Nayoki is a reasonably strong mage but she doesn't have anything to anchor on and push back against, and she's leery of using explosions or something and injuring poor squishy Marian, so she's hauling them with just her dolphin swimming and some undirected mage-energies. :Nearly there: 

<Leareth?> he tries, even though presumably this has already been tried.

Not answering. 

Andalites do not, as a rule, swim. They will complicate this situation least by remaining cockroaches unless there is additional mage-help needed.

They get to the surface. 

Nayoki holds Leareth in a force-net and pokes him. 

He doesn't really wake up but he does eventually take a breath.