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  TSSSSEEEEWWWW!

  Loren fired the shredder on low power. I jerked suddenly, and slumped forward, turning off the screen as I fell.

  I jumped back up.

  "You want this back?" Loren asked, holding the shredder toward me.

  «No. Keep it. You did well. Perfect timing. The visser will think you're still a Controller. He'll think you stunned me. I'm killing all power. We'll just wait for the sub-visser to come to us.»

  "Is this going to work?" Loren asked anxiously.

  «lf it doesn't, neither of us is going to the Yosemite,» I said.

  98 "You picked a great time to learn how to joke, Elfangor."

  We didn't have to wait long. The Blade ship fired up its engines and leaped forward. It ate up the few thousand miles in seconds.

  «Come to me, Visser whatever-your-number-is-now. Come to me,» I muttered to myself.

  I targeted the shredders on the belly of the Blade ship. I was perfectly calm. Despite the battle I knew was raging around the StarSword. Despite the approach of the visser's ship. One shot was all I needed. I would wait till he was practically on me. And then -

  WHAPPP!

  "Ahhhh!"

  Chapman! He had freed his legs and kicked Loren's feet. She went down hard. The shredder skittered across the floor.

  The human was slower than me. But he was closer. His bound hands closed around the shredder seconds before I reached him.

  TSSEEEEEWW!

  He fired!

  I dodged.

  The Blade ship closed in.

  TSSEEEEWWW!

  «Arrrrggghhh!» A glancing hit. The beam struck my left arm and left foreleg. Pain shot through me

  99 like shards of glass. My left arm was as numb as stone. My left front leg was useless. I could stand, but I could barely move.

  "How do you like it, Andalite?" Chapman crowed as he rose to a standing position. He leveled the shredder at me.

  "Oh, I have so had it with you!" Loren yelled. Still lying on the deck, she drew her legs up and kicked upward. Both her artificial hooves hit Chapman right where his legs joined his body.

  "Ooooofff!" Chapman gasped. He grabbed himself with both hands, still clutching the shredder.

  I believe the kick was painful to him.

  "Oof this!" Loren said. She jumped up off the deck and delivered an impossibly high kick that caught Chapman under the chin. His head snapped back. Loren snatched the shredder from him.

  "You know, Chapman, you are really making the human race look bad," she said. "You are seriously embarrassing me."

  "Who's side are you on?" Chapman grated.

  "Not yours," Loren said. She fired the shredder and Chapman jerked and went limp.

  BUMP! BUMP!

  The Jahar shook from a slow impact. The Blade ship had latched on! They were boarding us!

  As I watched, half-paralyzed, the hatch began to open.

  100 The hatch opened.

  «Loren! The shredder.. . . Shoot!»

  The hatch door flew open with a boom. Loren fired!

  TSSSEEEEWWW!

  A Hork-Bajir warrior fell back. An arm appeared, reaching past the collapsed Controller and aiming a Dracon beam.

  An Andalite arm!

  TSSSSEEEEWWWW!

  The Dracon beam fired. The shot missed me but hit Loren and knocked her, already unconscious, into me. With only three good legs, I fell hard to the deck on my numb arm. Loren landed on top of me.

  The evil Yeerk creature who had stolen Alloran's body pushed past the Hork-Bajir as I struggled desperately to get out from under Loren.

  The visser was in! He was aboard the Jahar

  I had one chance. One. And then let the Yeerk kill me! I swung my tail, aiming blind. The visser jerked back reflexively. But I wasn't aiming for him.

  101 The tip of my blade hit the console. And to my great pleasure I heard -

  TSSSSWWWWEEEWW!

  The Jahar fired her shredders. Point-blank range. Point-blank range into the belly of the Blade ship.

  «Noooooo!» the visser screamed.

  Kuh-BOOOOOOOM! The Blade ship tore loose of the Jahar.

  FWWOOOOOSSSH! The hatch was open to space. Air blew from the ship, sending it into a spin. Everything that wasn't bolted down flew toward the open hatch.

  The unconscious Hork-Bajir was thrown into space. Chapman's unconscious body slid toward the opening. The visser was knocked down.

  But even as he lay there, the Yeerk visser aimed his Dracon beam at me. «You're a real source of agitation, Elfangor. Now, die!»

  In despair I whipped my tail.

  WHUMPF! Something hit us hard, just as the Yeerk squeezed the trigger.

  TSSEEEEWWW! The Dracon blast missed me!

  I was gasping for air. The oxygen was gone. The Jahar was spinning out of control through space.

  The visser slammed against the walls as we spun wildly. Loren's body rolled away toward the hatch, but now the automatic safety devices of the ship were slowly closing the door.

  102 We spun, and through the window I saw flashes of Andalite fighters half-covered with living rock. And Yeerk Bug fighters now suffering the same fate.

  I saw, in a wild, spinning flash, the Blade ship, one blade shot away.

  And then . . . coming at us ... rushing toward us ... an asteroid!

  FFWWWUUUMMMPPP!

  The asteroid latched onto the poor, dying Jahar. And in wild, crazily pitching flashes as I was tossed helplessly, I saw the window going dark. Half-covered now. Half-covered by living rock!

  The asteroid had us!

  I was slammed violently by acceleration as the asteroid moved away from the battlefield, holding the Jahar in its death grip.

  The Jahar's compensators were off now. The ship was dead. Half-swooning from lack of air, I staggered up, fighting the insane force of acceleration.

  Air! We needed air!

  The emergency environmental power unit should have come on. But the ship's power was dead, drained away by the energy-eating asteroid.

  Air!

  My lungs screamed. My hearts hammered madly, circulating useless blood. The manual emergency tanks, I had to ... to ...

  103 But maybe it didn't matter. . . . Maybe it was pointless to fight. Arbron . . . gone. Alloran .. . worse than gone. Terrible things. . . terrible sights . . .

  Let it all end. It was fine without air. Fine to suck with your lungs and feel nothing. I was sinking, down, down, down.

  No need to worry. Nothing to be afraid of.

  Let it end, Elfangor.

  Just let it end. .. .

  Tell all your friends the collector's edition of The Andalite Chronicles (Parts I, II, and III together in one book) will be available in November 1997 at a bookstore near you!!

  104 Don't; miss

  the

  andalite

  chronicles

  Visser Thirty-two stood on the bank of the pool

  in the Yeerk zone, under his own green sky.

  And on either side of him stood a creature like nothing I had ever seen or imagined. They were each about three feet tall and four and a half feet long. They were mostly a dark, dirty yellow with irregular black spots. But the head and shoulders were the deep red of the Yeerk plants.

  The heads were tiny for the bodies, elongated, almost needle-sharp. The mouths were long and narrow. Hundreds of tiny, bright red teeth stuck out, jagged and wildly different in length and shape.

  But what struck me as strangest was that the creatures did not have legs in the usual sense. They had wheels.

  105 Yes, wheels. Four of them, to be exact.

  The wheels were located where legs should be. Each was sloppy and irregular in shape, not perfectly round. But it was easy to see that the wheels were for real. There was mud and dirt all around them, and when I strained my stalk eyes I could even see where the creatures had left tracks in the dirt. Wheel tracks.

  "Elfangor, what are those things?"

  «l have no idea. I can't imagine wh
at evolutionary path would conceivably have created a creature with wheels.»

  Visser Thirty-two actually gave a jaunty wave of his hand. «So, young Elfangor, we meet again. As you see, I brought my pets: Jarex and Larex. And you brought your pet, too. Your pet human.»

  Loren looked at me. In a voice Visser Thirty-two was sure to hear, she muttered, "You know, Elfangor, I'm beginning to see why you Andalites really dislike Yeerks. Whatever body they may be in, they still have the manner of slugs."

  «Brave little human girl,» the Yeerk visser mocked. «Do you understand that even now my people are on their way to evaluate your primitive world? Do you understand that within a few years your people, you humans, will be slaves of the Yeerk Empire?»

  "Blah, blah, blah," Loren said.

  106 I had no idea what that meant. Neither did the visser.

  "You do a lot of talking for a slug," Loren clarified. "You think I'm scared of you?"

  «Yes. I know you're scared of me.»

  For a moment Loren said nothing, but her lower lip was trembling slightly. Then, she knelt quickly, plunged her hand into the water and withdrew it. She was holding a rock. She drew her arm back, swept her arm in a big loop and released the rock with precise timing. The rock flew through the air at an impressive speed.

  And the aim wasn't bad, either.

  BONK!

  «Ahhh!» the visser cried. The rock had struck him right in the face, just below his left main eye.

  I don't know who was more amazed, me or the visser.

  «What. . . what do you call that?» I asked her.

  "That? We call that softball. I pitch for Frank's Pro Shop Twins back home. All-city two years in a row."

  «What is softball?»

  " It's a game we play."

  «And you hit people in the face with rocks?»

  "Not usually."

  I was impressed by the human ability to throw things with such force. I was sure that Andalite sci-

  107 entists would enjoy studying humans some day. They appeared more frail and ridiculous than they were.

  The visser was not impressed. He was just angry.

  «So. You propel rocks at me! You'll be very sorry you ever propelled a rock at me, human. Jarex! Larex! Attack !»

  The situation stopped being amusing very quickly. The twin beasts turned their wheels, sluggishly at first. But then picked up speed.

  I almost didn't move, I was so fascinated seeing the biological wheels turn. It was truly incredible.

  «You admire my pets, Andalite? They are a species called Mortrons. As a young lieutenant I went on a survey party to a world that was later destroyed when its sun went nova. We thought we might be able to make Controllers of these Mortrons, but that didn't work out. Their brains are simply too tiny to accommodate us. Instead, I brought two of them home as pets.»

  All the while the visser talked - or "blah, blah, blahed," as Loren had said - the Mortrons gathered speed and raced around the circumference of the pool.

  They made a strange sound. A HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF. Faster and faster.

  «They have amazing capacities, my young friend Elfangor. As you will soon see.»

  108 «What's the matter, Yeerk? Afraid to fight me tail-to-tail?» I taunted. I hoped the answer was yes, because I was not at all sure which of us would win a tail fight. While I was totally confident I could deal with these Mortrons.

  HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF!

  The wheels spun faster, and the ungainly yellow and black monstrosities were nearly to the edge of the Yeerk portion of the pool. I watched carefully to see whether they could move from the Yeerk area into the human area.

  Unfortunately, the answer was yes.

  «Don't worry,» I told Loren. «l can handle these two creatures.»

  HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF-SCRINK-SHWOOOP!

  Suddenly the creatures each split into two parts! The bottom portion, the yellow part with the wheels, swerved away. The dark red upper portion simply rose from the body, unfolded leathery wings I'd never even suspected, and flew straight at me!

  "Elfangor!" Loren cried.

  «Hah-hah! Kill, Jarex! Kill, Larex! Kill the An-dalite!» Visser Thirty-two cackled gleefully.

  The first Mortron - I don't know if it was Jarex or Larex - opened its mouth and showed its rows of uneven but brutally unpleasant teeth. It powered through the air like a rocket.

  I dodged left and struck with my tail blade!

  109 FWAPP!

  SPLEET! FLUMP. FLUMP.

  My tail blade sliced the Mortron into two chunks. The two separate pieces fell to the ground with a wet splat.

  "Elfangor, the other one!"

  The second Mortron used the distraction provided by his brother to swoop wide, then arch in behind me. A tactic that would have worked on most opponents. But not on an Andalite who can see in all directions at once.

  His toothy mouth was inches from my neck when I struck.

  FWAPP!

  SPLEET! FLUMP. FLUMP.

  And the second Mortron bird-portion fell in pieces to the ground.

  I was feeling pretty good, until I looked at the visser and saw the amusement in his eyes.

  "Elfangor, look. Look!" Loren cried.

  I turned my stalk eyes toward the ground. With amazing speed, the two bloody halves of each Mortron were growing. One piece of each was growing to become a complete bird-portion again. And the other piece was going even further - growing into a complete, two-piece, yellow and black, four-wheeled Mortron.

  110 I had sliced both Mortrons in half. And now they were becoming four Mortrons.

  «Are you doing the math in your head, Elfan-gor?» the visser jeered. «They regenerate! Cut an attacking Mortron in pieces and each piece grows again to become a complete Mortron. It's the killing frenzy. It gives them an enzyme boost that makes them regenerate! Try to kill these four and you'll have eight. Kill those eight and you'll have sixteen! Thirty-two! Sixty-four!»

  I stared in horror as the Mortron pieces grew and grew. In seconds they would be ready to attack again. And anything I did to destroy them would merely make more of them!

  «Loren, I don't know what to do. If only I had a shredder!»

  "Can you outrun them?"

  «Yes, I can. But you can't! They are faster than you are. And I won't leave you.»

  "You won't have to. Maybe. How strong is your back? Never mind, it must be strong enough. Elfan-gor, don't be offended, okay?"

  «Offended by what?»

  "Hold still. I'm gonna try something."

  She came to me and placed one hand on the back of my neck. She placed another hand on my rump, right at the base of my tail. And suddenly, she

  111 leaned her weight on me, swung one leg up and over, and came to rest straddling my back. She sat there with one human leg hanging off either side of my back and held her hands clasped around my neck.

  I turned my stalk eyes around and found myself staring directly into her small blue human eyes.

  "Now let's run," she said.

  «With you on my back?»

  But even while I was standing there in blank astonishment, I saw a fully-formed Mortron rise from the dirt. It was just a few feet away and it launched its bird-part. Leather wings propelled jagged razor-sharp teeth straight for my throat.

  "Elfangor, this is not the time to think," Loren yelled. "Run! Ruuuuun!"

  So I did. With the human girl actually on my back, I ran.