Chapter Text
“I look forward to our two peaceful peoples working closely together, to forming a deep and abiding friendship. We have so much to learn from our Andalite brothers, just as we have already learned so much from the great Elfangor and his no less courageous and resourceful brother, Aximili."
Translation: The Dome ship Elfangor is going to come in and annihilate all of the real Elfangor's work? Kill his little brother who happens to be a ready-made Andalite hero? Guess again, you mean old fart.
The captain listened to all this impassively. But I could see the steam sort of leaking out of him. By the end of Jake's little speech his eyes were glazed over. He knew he'd been trapped but good, and the truth was, he was probably relieved.
<Who exactly are you?> Asculan asked Jake. I jerked a thumb at my friend. "This is Jake. Jake Berenson. President of Earth.”
Instantly, I knew I made a mistake. Jake was giving me the kind of look my mom used to give me when I tried to pet raccoons, an incredulous ‘why would you do that’ face. In a second, the tone of the room shifted.
<I… see.> Asculan’s “voice” said <My apologies for any offense, President. I had no idea that humans could elect someone so young, you must be very talented.> Oh shit.
In his defense, Jake tried to repair things. “I think you misunderstood-“
He was cut off <No, no, I should have known better than to assume your position. I am of course amenable to open negotiations with you, as the President of your planet.> He did the weird Andalite smile thing. <Will a meeting in one of your Earth weeks be adequate?>
Jake was shaken, his former confidence now slightly diminished. “Yes, Earth can negotiate then, but I-“
<Excellent. It was an honor to meet you, President>
The connection cut out.
Silence. We flew the Pool ship to a rendezvous point just beyond the moon's orbit. As we'd promised, we deployed the Bug fighters by remote control and blew them up. We detached the ship's engines and waited.
Jake stared blankly at the dead screen the whole time, no longer the super suave leader he was at the start. He slowly turned to face me.
“What did you do Marco!? ‘President of Earth’? Why would you say that?!” Uh oh he was pissed. He looked like when cartoons get mad and start turning bright red, shaking, and smoking at the ears.
I had to save this. “It was a joke, I didn’t think he’d take it seriously!”. Classic Marco, always wise-cracking. Classic Andalites, never getting the joke.
Jake fixed me with another look that would look right at home on my mom and grit his teeth.
“Marco,” he started, “do you know what this means?”
Of course I knew what it meant; did he think I was an idiot? I opened my mouth but he cut me off before I could respond.
“We need peace with the Andalites. They’ve agreed to share credit. They’re supposed to meet with world leaders to negotiate interplanetary agreements”. He sounded like he was two seconds away from ripping his hair out. “But now, thanks to you, they think I’m in charge of the whole goddamn planet! So now, we have to fix this within the week or our first chance at any interplanetary relations is gone!”
I thought Jake was exaggerating just a little. It’s not like one mistake would make every alien planet hate us. Plus, we still beat the Yeerks for the Andalites, so they can’t be that pissed that there was a misunderstanding.
Not like I could tell that to Jake while he’s still on his whole “scorched earth” mindset.
“Jake, chill out ok? We can fix this.” A statement I personally wasn’t sure about but at this point I had to be Mr. Optimism.
Unfortunately for Mr. Optimism, Jake was having none of it.
“Fix it? Fix it how? Are you going to write them a strongly worded letter? ‘Hey aliens, whoops! We goofed!’”
I raised my arms in a surrender pose. “No need to be sarcastic.”
Jake just stared at me.
“Okay, fine,” I said, throwing up my hands. “So maybe I didn’t totally think it through. But maybe, and hear me out here, maybe this could work. I mean, it's not like Earth has just one government anyway. You know how long it’s gonna take the U.N. to even agree on a font for the first human-Andalite treaty?”
“They think I’m the President of Earth, Marco,” he said slowly, like he was trying not to yell and also trying not to rupture a blood vessel in his neck. “Of Earth. Not mayor, not ‘youth ambassador,’ not ‘That Guy Who Was in All the News Stories About Saving the Planet from Brain Slugs.’ President. I can’t do that!”
“Well, to be fair, you did save the planet,” I said. “And you’ve got nice hair. That’s, like, 90% of politics anyway.”
A pause. “You think my hair is nice?”
Score! That’s the closest to joking Jake’s sounded in forever. “You're so gay.”
Jake didn’t answer right away. He just dropped into the co-pilot seat, leaned forward, and let his head fall into his hands.
We sat there in silence for a bit.
“I’m serious,” I said finally. “You’ve got presidential hair. Very... decisive. Very ‘I-don’t-have-time-for-this-I’m-saving-the-world.’”
“You’re not helping.”
“Wasn’t trying to.”
Jake let out a breath and stared out the front viewport, at the empty blackness.
I leaned back. “Look, it’s not that bad.”
Jake snorted in the mean way.
“Okay, it’s bad,” I admitted. “But come on. You’ve talked a Visser into surrendering. You’ve fought brain-controlling slugs in your pajamas. You think you can’t out-bluff one overly polite alien horse guy?”
Jake rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t want this.”
“I know.”
“I was supposed to be done,” he muttered. “We all were. After the war. After everything.”
He didn’t say it, but we both knew he was talking about Rachel. How she now would never get to see the end of this war.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”
We sat there again, just the hum of the ship’s systems and the distant clicking of a cooling engine. The controllers had since left the room, probably trying to find some nonexistent escape hatch.
“I’m not Elfangor,” Jake said. “I’m not some hero out of Andalite myth. I’m not even sure I’m a good person.”
I blinked. That one hit.
“Jake... you made calls no one should have had to make. You carried us through stuff no one else could have survived. And maybe you’re not a shining blue symbol of moral clarity or whatever. But you’re not the bad guy either. You’re just... us. Human.”
He looked over at me. For once, no anger, no frustration. Just tired.
“Thanks,” he said. “Even if this is all your fault.”
“There it is,” I said, grinning. “I was worried I was getting off too easy.”
He cracked a smile. A real one. Small, but real.
“I’m still gonna make you explain this to the U.N. when it all blows up.”
“Oh, totally. I’ll bring charts and everything. Big ones. With arrows. Maybe a sock puppet.”
Jake glanced sideways at me. “They think you work for me. That makes you Secretary of Defense or something.”
“Sweet. Do I get a badge?”
“No.”