:I have him at the surface, he is breathing: she tells Matirin. :I - do not really know what to do now: They're a thousand miles from the nearest land - which is in Yeerk hands - and none of them can do Gates to orbit or anything that fancy. Who even knows what's happening in orbit. Probably they should...check in? Or something? 

Someone with the comms spell can check in with the fleet in orbit, but Matirin's best guess is that it's going to be a drawn-out, ugly but still winnable fight, unless the Yeerks had enough forewarning to consolidate ships here from elsewhere, and - he doesn't see how they could have.

Comms spell, that's a good idea. One of the mages thinks they have range for it, and he attempts it.

:...You had the right guess: he tells Matirin. :Pool ship's taken, Blade ship's destroyed, the robots didn't get any of the others. And the moon is harmless after all. They found more accurate intel on the Pool ship. It's - going to be a while, and that's not even mentioning the ground side - and underwater side - but sounds like we'll win it eventually: 

:So the only concern is if the Yeerks notice us here first: 

<How long do we expect Leareth to be unconscious.>

:I am not sure. Hopefully not more than half a candlemark: And she's really, really hoping less than two candlemarks. :He - will not be able to do any major magic for longer than that, though, he exhausted himself very thoroughly. And we do not have any source of mage-energies here: 

<It is difficult to find a small group of people not using technology in the middle of an ocean but I would not say impossible and the Yeerks would be very motivated.>

A wave crashes over them. Leareth seems to be having a somewhat hard time getting air, afterward. 

Nayoki holds Leareth firmly in the force-net, pumping with her tail to keep him at the surface, and nudges him hard with her snout, repeatedly Mindspeaking him loudly, until he exhales a spume of mist and water droplets through his blowhole and then takes a proper breath. The waves, either from from the ship's crash or just the wind and weather, are huge, rising ten and fifteen feet tall; they keep falling into shadow and then rising on the peak, briefly glimpsing an endless horizon of water. 

:I want to order the other Andalite ship to orbital strike the land base: she tells Matirin, flatly. :They are the most likely to be seeking us and to have the resources to mount an attack. I - think Leareth would endorse it, if he were conscious: 

< - yes, that seems like a good idea.>

The mage can pass this message up to someone in orbit via communication-spell. 

Waves crash up and down. All the non-morph-capable humans are starting to get very seasick. 

Marian is concerned that the Andalite-cockroaches in her pockets are underwater, since most of her is, and that they can handle this for a while but not forever. She yells to Nayoki to Mindspeak them, since she's worried cockroach hearing can't make out human speech and also it's so loud with the waves constantly crashing up and down. Then she starts very carefully plucking cockroaches out of her soaking-wet scrubs pockets, one at a time, and sticking them into her bedraggled hair, where they can hold on nice and tight. 

Leareth stirs a little more in response to Nayoki's occasional Mindspeech shouts at him, but doesn't wake up. 

Some indeterminate length of time later, the sound of the orbital strike reaches them. Underwater first, where it's mainly audible to Nayoki in dolphin form and leaves her dazed and disoriented for a minute, and then, many minutes later, a roar and vibration in the air. It's a long, long way off but it was very loud. 

The humans are getting cold. They huddle up close together. 

Nayoki, with a lot of fiddling around, discovers she can make a weather-barrier underwater and warm the water around them.

They wait. 

Word from the fleet in space. The decoy Yeerk ship was destroyed and the Andalite ships are taking some damage but they're winning. The orbital strike appears to have taken out the entire base, nothing is moving. They'll send a shuttle down to collect everyone when they can, of course, but they can't shield it during the descent and it'll be a while before it's safe. 

Eventually, it feels like a very very long time later, Leareth starts actually waking up to Nayoki's mental prods. 

Mindspeech isn't working, or at least it hurts enough that he doesn't want to try. He can't remember where he is but he's definitely not human-shaped right now, so he must be in morph, in which case he has thoughtspeech...

<Matirin -?> 

<You drained yourself unconscious. We are in the water.>

<The battle - what...?>

<We expect to win. . It will be a while before they're positioned to send a shuttle. We took out the Yeerk facilities on the one landmass from orbit so we do not expect we're being pursued. You should demorph; it has been about forty minutes.>

It's really hard to think through the backlash headache, which the orca brain seems even less a fan of than human brains are. Unsurprising, orcas have zero adaptations related to being Gifted.

They took out the Yeerk facilities from orbit... That means the pool on land. Leareth has feelings about this. Now is a terrible time to be having them, though, so he shoves it aside. 

...If he just demorphs from here, he'll probably still have backlash, since he's partially demorphed already and the Gift-channels are the part that demorphed first. What if he tries to fully morph back to a normal orca from here, and then in demorphing, tries to morph off the backlash damage? 

It takes him at least five tries to concentrate enough, but now he has no Gifts and is in significantly less pain. It doesn't help with the bone-deep exhaustion, though, and he floats limply for a while before he can muster the energy to properly demorph, focusing on not coming back with awful backlash - 

- it seems to mostly work, he's not in pain. He is, however, if anything even more exhausted than before. And now human-shaped, in very adverse-for-humans conditions. A wave breaks over his head and he flails ineffectually to get his head above water, too tired even to panic about it. 

Nayoki position her dolphin body under him and brings him to the surface. 

Leareth coughs and splutters, hanging onto her. This is very very miserable. He would like to take a nap but that's impossible under these circumstances. He keeps sliding off Nayoki and getting dunked every time a wave breaks. It turns out wet dolphins are slippery. 

Marian exchanges some shouts and Mindspeech replies with Nayoki, and then takes Leareth's shoulder, vigorously treading water to keep her head and shoulders above the surface. "Here, just relax, I've got you." Leareth is not being especially cooperative, but he's also too exhausted to fight her, and she manages to get him wrestled onto his back so she can support his head on her shoulder and hold onto him firmly. She only dunks her cockroach hat a couple of times in the process. Hopes they're all holding on firmly.

Nayoki can keep her flank under him and support his torso so Marian isn't solely responsible for keeping him at the surface, repositioning herself as needed each time a wave knocks her out of position. The dolphin body is kind of unhappy about this, it wants to be swimming around, but she ignores that.