«The visser!» Ax hissed. His stalk eyes were turned back toward us, his main eyes still glued to the computerized control board.
«How can you tell?» I demanded.
«lt is the Luminar. A beast from a moon of
128 the planet Slegabb Five. What else but tho visser in morph!»
Into the control room came the Luminar.
A blinding glow!
Blasting heat!
Heat emanating from the very skin of the beast. Seven feet of blowtorch!
Two short arms and two stubby legs protruded from a bulbous body. Sausagelike fingers. A wide smile, crackling with electricity.
A bleeding Nartec scrambled to his webbed feet and tried to scurry past the creature, into the corridor.
The Luminar extended one fat finger toward the Nartec.
SSSSZZZZZ!
Fried! A charred body collapsed in charcoal flakes to the floor.
I felt my stomach heave. The smell was revolting!
«0kay, we didn’t need that,» Marco said.
The Luminar pointed again. At each living Nartec still in the control room. Wounded or whole.
And before they could scream or cry or run ...
SSSSZZZZZ! SSSSZZZZZ! SSSZZZZZ!
Piles and heaps of charcoaled Nartec flesh! Before any of us could - could what? Save the Nartec, our enemy? Absurd. And yet, though we
129 hadn’t asked for this battle, though the Nartec were prepared to murder us, though we had all the moral right of self-defense, we had tried to avoid causing casualties.
The visser was simply killing.
The Nartec ran in final panic. And now there was no one in the room but us and the visser.
With a grin that sent tingles like painful static electricity down my spine, Visser Three slammed the inner door shut.
- I hope I haven’t broken your concentration, Andalite.»
«Not at all,» Ax replied coolly.
«Good Then you may fire engines as soon as possible. Oh, that’s right.» The visser chuckled. Small licks of flame shot from his mouth. «You can’t - unless I help you.»
I swallowed my disgust and spoke to him. «What makes you think you’ll be going anywhere with us, Yeerk?»
«Because you need me, fool. Your pathetic morphs were not successful in holding off the Nartec. Clumsy warriors though they are, there are many of them.» The visser chuckled. «And they have many, many weapons. Now that they have failed to retake this vessel, they will destroy it. You may have noticed the large cannon atop the palace. Primitive human weapons, but very efective at this range.»
130
«And why would we trust you! Why should we believe you’re not going to kill us, too, the minute the ship takes off?»
The visser-in-morph took a step further into the room.
Involuntarily I stepped back from the intense heat flowing from his body. We all did.
«You should trust me because you must. And because I need you to man this ship.» He gestured toward the piles of Hork-Bajir and shrugged. «My crew is - how shall I put this incapacitated?»
«Jake, don’t trust him,» Marco warned privately.
«And what if we say no?» I said. «What if we force you off the ship right now?»
The visser chuckled again. «ln that case we all will die. In one unpleasant way or another. You will be fried. Burnt beyond recognition. I will be tortured and mummified or ingloriously murdered by an antique Earth weapon.»
«Prince Jake.» Ax’s voice was tense. «l am still unable to breach the security protocols
I shot a look at my team.
Rachel growled menacingly but had stepped back to lean against the wall.
Marco was on the floor. The protruding sword still stuck out awkwardly in front of him. The pain must be awful beyond imagining.
131 Cassie held her front right paw off the ground, her body trembling.
Tobias favored his left wing.
This was insane! An impossible situation!
Maybe. Maybe not.
«Everyone,» I said privately. «Pm going to ask the visser to turn off the security protocols
«Yes, Prince Jake.»
«Jake, are you nuts?» Rachel hissed.
«Sometimes,» I said. «Let’s hope now isn’t one of those times. Timing is everything. Be ready. Be very ready. The moment will come.»
I turned to face Visser Three.
«We accept your. . . offer.»
132 CHAPTER 23
«What was that you said, Andalite? I must not have heard properly.»
«You heard me,» I said. Struggling to maintain control. «We accept.»
The visser’s Luminar mouth split into its bright, crackling grin. Small plumes of smoke shot from its nostrils. «As I knew you would. One can always count on two things from Andalites: That they will adopt a sanctimonious moral posture. And that when it serves their purpose, they will quickly abandon that posture.»
Ax stepped nimbly away from the main station. The visser took his place and the Sea Blade shivered and hummed as the engines came to life.
133 «There are more coming!» Tobias said from his perch at one of the portholes. «And a group of Nartec are running back along the river.»
«Keep watching, Tobias,» I ordered.
«You may pilot the ship, Andalite,» the visser said now, allowing Ax to resume the pilot’s position. «And one of you may take the weapons stations
«Rachel,» I said.
«Um, Jake? I don’t know how to run one of these - »
«Ax will tell you in private thought-speak,» I said. «Just play the part.»
Ax guided the ship away from the dock. Turned it and began to power down river.
«Marco? Can you close the outer hatch and hold it?»
«Maybe. Not when we get out into the ocean, though, dude. The water pressure . . . »
«l don’t think the visser knows the hatch is blown,» I said. «He didn’t come from outside. He was aboard the whole time. If you can do it . . . »
«What, this little sword in my stomach? I can do it»
Marco lumbered away.
«Where is he going?» The visser demanded.
«To remove the sword from his stomach,» I
134 said calmly. «He would prefer not to scream in pain in the presence of a Yeerk visser.»
«How are we going to get through to the museum cave?» Cassie asked me.
«Ax, take her down, just enough to submerge us.»
«The hatch.»
«Ax. Just do it, please. And then, as we approach the barrier, instruct Rachel in blowing it open.»
All that was in private thought-speak. In the open I said, «Fire when ready!»
«l give the commands on this ship!» the visser roared.
«Not to my people,» I shot back.
TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW!
The high-powered Dracon beams tore through the wall of rock surrounding the narrow tunnel.
«Cassie, Tobias. Keep an eye on the visser. And watch the exterior screens.»
«0h, yeah.»
We powered along the river, just below the surface. Exterior cameras showed us the Nartec’s macabre collection of seagoing vessels and peoples. A graveyard of Earth’s cultures.
A history lesson I would have preferred to have missed.
A history lesson I would never forget.
135 We were alone in a Yeerk ship with Visser Three.
«Jake!» It was Cassie. «They’re coming after us!»
«German U-boat,» Tobias added.
«Andalite! Fire!» the visser roared.
Ax said rapidly, «Rachel, you can target the pursuing ship’s rudder without damaging the ship itself,» He gave her instructions. Rachel stabbed at the controls with her Trent Reznor nails.
«0n my commnad,» Ax said calmly. He put the Sea Blade into a sudden starboard turn. The U-boat was at an angle to us, baring her stern.
TSEEEEEW!
We fired. The U-boat stopped, dead in the water
.
The visser sneered. «Pity for the weak. An admirable character trait. It was Andalite pity that allowed us to emerge and begin the conquest of the galaxy.»
«Wall ahead,» Cassie reported.
TSEEEEWWW!
We blasted our way through the second rock wall.
Zoomed along the narrow pitch-black river, the sides of the massive ship scraping and gouging the muddy walls of the tunnel.
«0ne more,» I said privately. «And then, everyone be ready.»
Then in open thought-speak, «Prepare to fire. Fire!»
136
TSEEEWWW!
«Keep it up,» I ordered.
The beam burned through the water, sliced through living rock. Turned water to explosions of steam.
«Prince Jake. There are several mechanically propelled, cylindrical objects coming at us from behind. They appear to be propelled by primitive electric engines turning small propellers^
«Torpedoes!» the visser cried, seeing the display. «Three minutes to impact. We can easily outrun them. Maximum power, Andalite! We’ll be in the open sea within seconds.»
«NO!» Private thought-speak.
«Jake! You okay man?» Tobias said.
«l’m fine, buddy. Ax. Kill the engines. Marco? Open the hatch.»
«0h, man,» Rachel moaned.
The engines suddenly quieted.
The visser turned violently away from the control board. «You betray me?!» he roared. «l will incinerate you!»
Just then the wave of seawater exploded through the doorway and flooded across the bridge deck. The visser’s burning feet were suddenly mere flesh.
«lnteresting morph, Visser,» I said. «Does it work underwater?»
137 CHAPTER 24
Water rushed into the room, an out-of-control surge of green seawater.
«Rachel! Grab Tobias!»
Tobias was in the most danger. Birds don’t do well in the water. Rachel wrapped him in her powerful embrace, and the water swept over us.
I was swept into a bulkhead by the force of the water. Slammed, but softly.
Saw Cassie already upright and swimming through the water toward the outer hatch.
Saw the visser, demorphing as fast as he could.
Saw Ax seeming to walk through the water, his four hooves galloping almost comically.
Rachel powered by on main force.
The water stung my eyes. Filled my nostrils.
138 Deafened me, annihilated my sense of smell. The tiger did not panic - it was one cat that could swim - but I was scared just the same.
The surge of water relented once the bridge was filled with water. I could swim. But could I breathe?
How long till the torpedoes hit?
And how much damage would -
B-B-BOOOOMMMM!
B-B-BOOOOMMMM!
One, two torpedoes. Exploded!
The Sea Blade rocked. My eardrums were blown in by the concussion. I lost my sense of direction. Floated, lost, confused, into a half demorphed Visser Three. Pushed away.
The Sea Blade rolled sluggishly. Sinking!
Yes, bow down. I was sure. My tiger senses were not evolved for this, but still the tiger knew up from down. The Sea Blade was sinking.
SHSHSHWUUUUPPPP!
Suddenly I was out. Out of the ship. It fell away from me, two broken halves. Then the stern half snapped in half again.
I swam like mad, straight up. Up to the air!
My orange-and-black-and-white head burst through the barrier between water and air. I was still in Nartec territory. Still in the river that wound through the hideous Nartec museum.
I could see the looming bulk of the Japanese
139 aircraft carrier. Those flyers had been my country’s enemies. Now friends.
My mind flooded with that awful image: the men, the warriors, turned into stuffed, mounted displays.
I submerged and began to demorph.
As a hammerhead shark I swam through the falling rocks, the wreckage we’d made of the Nartec’s defensive wall.
I found the others in similar morphs out in the clean, open sea. A gathering of sharks. And one orca, Cassie.
«Everyone here?» I asked.
«Yeah, we were just waiting on you,» Marco said.
» The visser?» I asked.
«l just echolocated,» Cassie said. «l saw what looked a bit like a giant squid. Leaving the vicinity of the cave entrance.»
«Heading which way?»
«Toward land,» Cassie said. «Toward land.»
The visser had survived.
But so had we. Barely. My own mistakes would keep me awake at night for a while to come. But I’d been in charge for a while, now. I’d gotten past thinking I would always be right.
It’s a war, I reminded myself. You did what you could, Jake. You tried to do what’s right. You tried not to make it any worse than it had to be.
140 And you got everyone home alive.
We headed back toward shore, away from the nightmare world beneath the sea. Back toward our own gentler civilization.
«Filthy creatures,» Rachel spat. «Someone needs to wipe them out.»
«The Nartec?» Cassie asked.
«Who else? What they did to all those people? All those sailors? Those flyers back there? Filthy, sick creatures. As bad as the Yeerks.»
«l believe you overlook one fact,» Ax said.
«Yeah?»
«All those sailors back there, all those humans the Nartec . . . defiled? Many of them have sunk in storms or hurricanes, or by the failure of primitive human technology. Many. But not all.»
«So?»
I knew where Ax was going. I said, «So the rest? Including those Japanese flyers? They were sunk. By humans, in human wars. Not by the Nartec. The weapons they used on us? Human weapons. We want to hate them for what they do? Maybe we should stop helping them do it.»
Rachel was silent for a while, then she said, «0kay, fair enough. But you know what? We win this war someday, get rid of the Yeerks, and everything comes out and all? We need to go back, show people what’s down there, get busy.»
141 «Start a whole new war?» Cassie asked. «No. Not to fight,» Rachel said softly. «To bury.»
«Amen to that.»
I said, «Let’s get out of here.»
142
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