Meeting

Shattered. That was the word that best described the state of my new host.

But let's start again from the beginning.

My name is Thévenin789. I cannot tell you my last name, because I do not have one. And I cannot tell you which planet I am on, because the enemy keeps tracking us. The enemy is the Andalites. TheAndalites are an extremely advanced race of extraterrestrials who have made it their mission to exterminate my race: the Yeerks.

In our natural state, we yeerks resemble slugs the size of a rat. In this form, we are completely helpless and the andalites could have easily exterminated us. But yeerks are parasites. We can enter the heads of species with a compatible central nervous system and take control. We thus form what we call a controller. A human who is no longer exactly human. Or a member of any species controlled by a yeerk in their head.

The school bus driver, the police officer in the patrol car, the minister, the TV journalist, the rock star in the music video, the person who smiles at you when you pass by on your bike, any of them could be a controller. Your teacher, your friend, your sister, your mother, and your father. We are everywhere and we spread as discreetly as possible throughout all strata of human society.

Even though it greatly slowed down the harvesting of new hosts, keeping the secret was essential if we didn't want the livestock to be partially destroyed during the invasion. Once transformed into controllers, most stay on Earth to continue the invasion, but a minority is urgently sent to hotspots on the front of the war between the Yeerk Empire and the coalition led by the Andalites.

Contrary to what opponents of visser-3 fear, for the moment, the invasion is a success. The secret has not been revealed and 10% of the Earth's military forces and police have already been transformed into controllers. As well as 100% of newspaper editors and 60% of journalists.

It is much faster than we had anticipated, but above all sufficient to paralyze any attempt at retaliation by humans. The only ones still opposing the idea of every human soon having a Yeerk in their head are a small group of elite Andalite soldiers who survived the destruction of their world ship by our fleet a few months ago.

Indeed, a few months ago, a small group of Andalite ships attempted to land by surprise on Earth with the aim of driving out the Yeerks. Fortunately, our fleet, though outnumbered, managed to intercept them near the moon's orbit and destroy them all without the humans noticing anything. But since then, this handful of surviving Andalites has been doing everything to slow down or expose our invasion to the public.

And my role in all this, you would ask me.

I was part of the expeditionary force from almost the beginning. From the time when Visser One personally led the operation. But my role was very limited. To avoid starving, once every three days, the Yeerks must leave their host to go into a large pool filled with highly mineralized water to feed on Kandrona. My role was to lock the hosts in cages while their Yeerks fed, then to force them to dunk their heads in the pool after two hours so that their Yeerk owner could repossess their bodies.

I did not understand the reaction of most human hosts. Instead of enjoying their two hours of freedom, most spent their time crying or screaming. Instead of resigning themselves to the impossibility of escaping, most attemptedto fight us. Yet it was obvious that a puny human could do nothing against a group of trained Hork-Bajir controllers.

Indeed, guards like me did not have the privilege of controlling a human, but had to settle for a Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir are one of the many races enslaved by the Yeerk Empire, but they stand out from the others due to their incredible usefulness in combat. Although they are vegetarians, the Hork-Bajir resemble the most fearsome predators imaginable. To describe them simply, they are like raptors the size of two men with claws the size of a small sword on every imaginable part of their body. Additionally, they have skin thick enough to stop a rifle bullet, reinforced with limestone plates capable of stopping a shell at the location of vital organs. On top of that, they can run at the same speed as a horse and possess impressive strength. In a word, the Hork-Bajir are walking tanks.

The empire therefore raises them in large quantities so that they provide its shock troops. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, their number remains limited. At the time of our invasion, their number did not exceed a hundred million and they reproduce very slowly. Quite the opposite of humans, whose numbers and rapid reproduction promised to provide the Yeerks with an unlimited number of hosts. Provided that the Yeerks are forced to reproduce more quickly, the high command hoped to obtain enough troops and workers in the near future to allow us to win the war against the Andalites.

Many Yeerks would have been happy with my assignment. It was an easy job, and the Hork-Bajir were very good hosts. But I couldn't stand this sinister cave where we had set up our headquarters. Nor the constant screams of the humans locked in the cages, mixed with those of my own host.

All day long, my Hork-Bajir host screamed for his freedom, and in the evening, he had nightmares. Even during the night, a Yeerk cannot disconnect from its host and stop seeing its thoughts. And the risk of being accused of sympathy and executed without trial by Visser-3 was too great for me to ease my conscience with other Yeerks. Worse, to justify why my host's resistance was still not broken, I had found nothing better than to say that I enjoyed hearing him scream. As a result, I now had the reputation of being a sadistic Yeerk.

Yet, it was quite the opposite. I was trying to be as kind as possible with my Hork-Bajir. But no matter what I said or did, he kept shouting for his freedom. I concluded that the Hork-Bajir were a species too stupid to negotiate with. Indeed, the Hork-Bajir had an intelligence similar to that of a 6-year-old human child. My host was simply incapable of understanding the situation and accepting my presence. The only thing that worked was torturing him by making him relive the worst moments of his life on loop. But I felt so much guilt that I was almost relieved to hear him scream again and I never did it again.

There must have been something abnormal about me. Normally, disciplining one's host was something natural and there was no reason to feel guilty about it. Some of my former teachers even said that a discipline session once a week was beneficial for the host and that one should not hesitate toapply one to him even if he had shown himself obedient. But I couldn't do it.

I had therefore made repeated requests to be assigned to another position. My dream was to become a ship pilot and have a Taxxon as a host. But my rank was too low for me to seriously hope for it. Until the day when Visser-One was replaced by Visser-Three at the head of the invasion. We hated each other, but he owed me a debt. He assured me that if I was patient, I would be entitled to a human host.

This news excited me. With this new host, I hoped everything would change. With my reputation, they would surely assign me an unwilling host (and even very unwilling). But I had been told that humans were much more intelligent than the Hork-Bajir. If that was true, then there might be a chance to reason with him and convince him to cooperate.

It is therefore with enthusiasm that, after several months of patience, I entered through the ear of my new host. A human named Tom Berenson. I connected to his brain in order to take control of his body and begin viewing all of his memories. I specify 'begin' because I had to stop quickly.

Already, because my host had regained consciousness and started to protest (I did not yet understand the concept of privacy at that time and found this request strange). But mostly because the memories were horrible. A memory was not just made up of images and sounds, but of all the sensations its owner had experienced at that time. Including their feelings. I could then feel the pain that Tom had experienced since his infestation. Yet, Temrash114 (his previous owner) had not been particularly sadistic. As one might expect from such a high-ranking Yeerk, he had treated his host by adhering as closely as possible to the empire's recommendations. Was it this human who was particularly sensitive, or did all hosts feel that? And in any case, how did Temrash114 manage to endure his human's suffering? Once again, I thought I must not be normal and felt a sense of shame.

But I had tried long enough to know that I would not be able to change. All I could do was hide my flaw from the other Yeerks and try to find a place where, despite it, I could live happily and serve the empire.

For the first time (of a long series), I broke the empire's rules and stopped my exploration of Tom's memory (much to his surprise). I made the secret sign to the guards, indicating that I was in control, then proceeded to the long stone staircase that would lead me to the surface. Once there, I waited for the system to identify my host, then entered the code that had been given to me in the pool. The doors finally opened.

I was then astounded by the beauty of the surface. For a while, all my worries vanished, and I spent at least an hour looking at and touching everything I found. This planet was truly magnificent, and human senses so, so, (..) there were no words to describe how incredible they were. But I had to interrupt my reverie when I heard a human ask if IDo not have a fainting spell. Apparently staring for 5 minutes, a cigarette butt crushed on the ground was considered abnormal by humans. I didn't know what this object was for, but the colors were so beautiful (should I specify that I was discovering the concept of color at the same time).

I assured him that I was perfectly fine and pulled myself together. I had to follow my host's routine and pass myself off as him. But I realized that, having not viewed all of his memories (especially the most recent ones), I didn't know what I was supposed to do. And also that my host had remained strangely silent since we left the yeerk pool.

Tom, what should I do?

"Leave my body and go die in hell, damn degenerate slug," replied Tom's voice, almost sobbing.

To my great surprise, I felt relief upon hearing this string of insults. I was afraid that my host had been completely broken by Temrash114. I don't know why that scared me. After all, a broken host would have been ideal. It would have guaranteed me some peace. So engrossed in my discovery of this fabulous world, I hadn't paid attention to my host's feelings and thoughts, but now, as I returned to myself, they overwhelmed me: fear, shame, pain, disgust, hatred, and above all, not the slightest ounce of hope. My own hopes of convincing him to become a volunteer melted like snow in the sun.

oOoOoOo

Author's note: For the curious, here is a magnificent drawing:

of an Andalite

2) of a Hork-Bajir:

His drawings are of course not mine and I take this opportunity to thankcharreed who created them and made them available for free on DeviantArt.