Tom’s face goes still, then slack, then grey.  The yeerk slides off the side of his face, then down his arm where it hits the ground.  Almost casual, Tom shifts one foot to the right.  Flattening the visser into a smear on the floor.

• The Pool ship and the Blade ship establish connection across their airlocks.  Tom throws the hatch on his side, and Ax on theirs.  The door has opened barely six inches before a blur of brown feathers explodes through the gap, crashing heedlessly into Rachel’s chest.  «Never,» Tobias is saying, «Never, never do that again, Rachel, I love you, never never—»

Jake looks up at Tom.  “How long?”

Tom blinks.  “What?”

“How long do we have?” Jake says.  “Until the andalite fleet gets here.  We talking five minutes, five days, what?  They cut off communication with Ax weeks ago, I’m working with old intel.”

“Hi,” Tom says.  “Good to see you too.”

Jake scrubs a hand over his face, breathing in and out.  Then he hugs his brother tight.  Then he says, “Sorry.  But the andalites are going to wipe us out when they get here, and I need to know how much Visser whatshisface lied to Arbron about the timeline.”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”  Tom sits down on the edge of the Blade ship’s maps table, pulls Jake down to perch next to him.  “They’re in Mars’s orbit right now, can already hear every transmission we make.  But what do you mean, wipe us out?  They’re andalites!”

Jake lifts his head to look at Ax, who steps forward. «Earth is under quarantine,» Ax says sadly.  «To contain the yeerk threat.  Humanity has been declared a lost cause.»

“You know,” Marco adds, forcing a laugh, “kind of like the hork-bajir were?  And yeah, same thing’s coming for us.”

“Oh.”  Tom slumps, sliding down to sit on the floor.  “Oh.”

“Everything else can wait,” Jake says.  “We’ll rest when it's over.  For now, I need you to help Ax pilot this thing to the hork-bajir valley.  And while you’re at it, I’m going to need a broadcast link to the entire Yeerk Empire.”

• The message is brief, and to the point.  Jake stands in front of the camera, Tom and Visser Three clearly visible in the frame as object lesson.  Jake is, he explains, taking control of the Yeerk Empire.  Effective immediately.  Anyone who has a problem with that is welcome to fire on his Pool ship, where he has 17,000 hostages on board.  His first order: all yeerks are to muster in Los Angeles.  He’ll need every yeerk, human, taxxon, and hork-bajir he can get, if they’re going to keep this planet alive.

• Three hours later, the leaders of the Earth Resistance and those of the Yeerk Empire come together in the field at the center of the hork-bajir valley, Blade ship parked at their back.

“Here’s the situation,” Jake says.  “We have control of the Yeerk Empire, for now.  A little over a day away, there are —”  He glances at Tom.

“Three Dome ships,” Tom reports dully, and Ax flinches.  “About five hundred andalite warriors.  Enough firepower to Death Star this entire planet.”

“But the Andalite Navy will not destroy Earth outright,” Jake continues.  “Their Electorate would never stand for that.  We’re under quarantine right now, which means no ships in or out, and plenty of ground troops coming to take out as many yeerk and human leaders as possible so that they can ‘protect’ us.  All of us…”  He looks around, from Eva and Toby and James to his aunt and cousins, to the three vissers standing in a cluster next to Visser Three, to his battered beloved team.  “Are in their crosshairs now.”

“We’ll never win in an open war,” Eva says.  “Even the Empire doesn’t have the resources, or they’d have attacked the andalite homeworld already.”

“And they’ll have us outmatched on a covert one,” Marco adds grimly, leaning to bump his arm against his mom’s.  “Not when every andalite in the Navy can morph.”

Tom turns and walks away then, back into the Blade ship.

“What if every single yeerk on Earth, and in its atmosphere, had a host?” Jake asks, looking at Visser Three.  “Would that be enough to get us an advantage?”

Rachel sucks in a breath.

«No,» Tobias snaps.  «No, fuck this.»

«Do it,» Visser Three says over him.  «Bring us enough hosts for all our people.  It is the only way you can hope to win.»

“If he’s suggesting it—”  Rachel jabs a finger at Visser Three.  “Then you know not to do it.  Right, Jake?  Right?”

“Voluntary hosts,” Cassie says quietly.  “If everyone was voluntary…”

• It’s then that Tom shoulders back into the group.  He tosses the morphing cube underhand to Arbron, who bobbles but catches it.  “We’re square now,” Tom says to him.  “But if your peace-love-and-dope crowd can hold off on quitting the war for long enough to make sure there’s still an Earth to anaconda on—”

“Hang on a second,” Jake says loudly.

«This cannot happen,» Ax says.

“Hey!” Eva snaps.

Tom turns, standing between Arbron and everyone else.  “More morphers,” he said.  “You’re welcome.”

«That morphing cube is meant to be in my Pool ship!» Visser Three shouts.  «In my private quarters!  How did you get that, you insolent ape?»

“He lied to you, fuckwit,” Tom snaps.  “He stole it from you, just like everything else, and—”  Midsentence he stops, whirls around, and marches out of the circle toward the edge of the valley.  Behind him, Arbron is long gone.  Morphing cube in tow.

• “Hey!”  Jake jogs to catch up with Tom, trailing Animorphs.  “Tom!  Where are you going?”

Tom doesn’t break stride, moving fast up the side of the valley.  “Last I heard the yeerk inside Mom was posted in Georgia.  So I’m walking to Georgia, unless I can steal a car or you people have a horse I can acquire.”

“No.”  Jake steps into Tom’s path, only to have Tom step around him.  “Tom, no.  We need you here.”

“Don’t care.  I’m out.”

“Tom.”  Jake steps into his path again.  “Stop.”

“You want to stop me, midget, you’re going to have to stop me,” Tom snaps.  This time he simply bowls into Jake and shoves him aside, still going.  “I’m not doing this.”

“Jake,” Cassie says, running forward to catch him on the arm.  “Maybe… let him go?”

“We need him,” Jake says, pulling free from her.  “Tom.  You said it yourself — that yeerk lied about everything.  Which means we need you to tell us what was real security intel, what was total crap.  We need to know how many morph-controllers are, how the yeerks’ security works —”

“No.”  Now Tom does stop, whirling around, face six inches from Jake’s.  “No.  You’re talking about keeping people enslaved to the yeerks, kid.  Visser Three is down there puppeting some andalite in front of your face, and you’re letting it happen!”

“They’re going to destroy the planet!” Jake shouts, leaning up even closer to Tom.

“Then LET THEM!  We’re not fucking worth that!”  Tom thrusts a hand back toward the clearing.  He and Jake are about an inch apart by now, both of them breathing hard.

«Aw man,» Tobias groans, watching from above, «there’s two of them now?»

«Always have been,» Rachel agrees, floating up next to him.

“Tom has a point!” Cassie announces loudly, again running up.  She grabs Jake by the arm and bodily yanks him back a step so that she can stand between them.  Turning to Tom, she adds, “Jake has a point too.”

Tom sucks a breath to shout some more, but stops in shock when Cassie jabs a finger at his face.

“We need to save the Earth,” she says.  “For everyone.  So Visser Three will come out of Alloran, and he can have a different body.  A volunteer body.  It can…”  She swallows.  “It can be me, okay?”

Jake shakes his head.  “I can’t lose you.  And I can’t give that fucker control of the most powerful morpher on the planet.”  He sucks in a breath, looking at Tom.  “But… yeah.  We can do that.  Tell him we won’t work with him until he moves to a voluntary host.  Do the same for all the other vissers, and spread the word to the rest of the Empire.  Okay?”

Tom slumps in place, looking at Cassie.  “You’d really do that.”

Cassie nods.  “If that’s what it takes. I've done it before.”

• They trail back to the clearing, somehow even more exhausted and demoralized than they were this morning.  Jake explains curtly that Visser Three can leave Alloran’s body, or he can say goodbye to this alliance.  Visser Three refuses, on the grounds they’d just kill him, at which point Jake specifies that they’ll need a volunteer to serve in Alloran’s place.

“I’ll do it,” Jordan says immediately, stepping forward into the circle.

“NO!” Rachel and Naomi and Tom and Walter all shout overtop each other.

Jordan, uncowed, looks around at them all.  “I’m useless to the war otherwise,” she says.  “I don’t morph.  And what’s he going to do with my body?”  She flicks fingers at herself, contemptuous.

“No,” Naomi says.  “Absolutely not.”

“You have no idea what you’re offering,” Tom agrees. "That is not consent.  Doesn’t count.”

«I tire of this!» Visser Three snaps.  «Either provide me a new body NOW, or—»

• “Then I guess,” a different voice says, “it’d better be me.”

Frozen silence falls in the clearing, as everyone turns slowly to look at Eva.

“Mom,” Marco whispers.  Devastation audible in his voice, because he knows she’s right.

Eva steps into the circle, looking Visser Three over.  “I know what I’m signing up for,” she says, voice barely shaking at all.  “I don’t morph, I have a bad knee, I’m half Jake’s size…”  Now she does find a smile, looking at Marco, ghastly with her grey pallor.  “What’s a big bad visser going to do to little old me?”

«Fascinating!» Visser Three says.  «I accept this proposal!»

“Enemy of Edriss’s enemy, right?”  Eva tries again for flippancy; no one laughs.  And then she gives up, and leans to press her ear against the side of Alloran’s head.

• The battle plan proceeds from there. "Find Gafinilan and Mertil," Jake tells Ax.  "Find whatever chee will still talk to us," Jake tells Tobias.  "Find the Yeerk Peace Movement leaders," Jake tells Cassie.  "Tell them what's happening here.  Tell them they can live in peace, on Earth, but that there won't be an Earth in a few days if they don't help us."  Marco and Rachel get different orders: follow the vissers.  Keep an eye on them.  If necessary...  If necessary, they're the two he can trust to do what's necessary.  But there's a reason he assigned Rachel to Eva, and left Marco with Admiral Carrington.

• Visser Thee makes another Empire-wide announcement.  In it, he calls Jake Visser One.

• They work into the night.  Communication is tossed over a mishmash of wires, Peter acting as informal switchblade operator and Toby as go-between for the different species.  Jordan gets her hands on a dracon beam at one point, and Tom calmly pauses to explain to her how to switch on its most lethal setting before turning back to the computer.

«Phone call for you, Prince Jake,» Alloran says in the early hours of the morning, holding out a Nokia.  «It’s a human by the name of President Clinton.»

• The Dome ship Elfangor breaks into Earth’s atmosphere a few hours later.

• Jake arranges another comm link.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff request that an emissary be included, and then the UN's DISEC does, and then Tony Blair calls and says he'd like to place a representative...  In the end, Ax sets it up with one camera in the Animorphs' room, 40 other non-participating members in the call.

«So you have dropped all pretense of defending Earth,» Captain Asculan says, by way of greeting.  «And fully thrown in with its enemies.  I should have expected no less, from an upstart falsely claiming the title war-prince on the grounds of stolen morphing technology.»

Jake waits in silence for this speech to go on, and on.  His hands are folded on the table in front of him.  Toby stands in the room with him, as does Arbron, as does Alloran.  Visser Three sits to his left, and only repeated shin-kicking from Rachel has thus far kept him from weighing in.

Finally Asculan runs out of recriminations and insults.  «Well?» he demands, into the silence.  «What do you have to say for yourself?»

Once again Eva's mouth opens.  Once again Rachel grabs her hard on the arm, and Visser Three wisely falls silent.  Jake can see the perverse logic of giving him this body: he's still here, able to see and to talk, but he's... contained.  And he doesn't have Edriss's skill at using Eva's intelligence for sadistic ends.

"We are exactly where we have always been," Jake says.  "On the side of humanity.  You would see humans destroyed.  We would see our species continue.  That is all."

«You honestly believe that, as you sit in a room with your own enslavers?» Asculan asks.  His stalk eyes appear to be pointed at Alloran, not Eva.  Unaware of the real threat.

Jake shrugs.  "We've reached an agreement.  They'll stop enslaving us if we give them access to morphing power."

«And you believe that?»

"They have taken control of every yeerk pool on the planet!" Visser Three shouts.  "Them and the traitorous scum they have brainwashed to their cause.  We have no choice!  But if you were to work with us to find a way to use our superior intelligence for the good of lesser species such as these..."  He gestures around the room.  "Then we could reach an agreement."

"He's right," Rachel says.  "Either the yeerks abandon all hosts within three days of when we all decide together that Earth is safe, or the kandrona stops."  She bares her teeth, half-grimace half-grin, at the screen.  "Personally, I'm hoping they do decide to fight back.  They deserve to shrivel up and die."

Alloran huffs a noise that sounds suspiciously like agreement.  Jake elects to ignore this.

"We'll meet, and we'll talk," Jake says.  "Eighteen Earth hours from now.  At the coordinates Warrior Aximili is sending your way.  Until then, be well."

Asculan says something else.  So does Visser Three.  Both get cut off when Ax jabs the button that ends the call.

• Visser Three wants to present a show of force to the andalites.  Jake reluctantly agrees.  Alloran agrees as well, even more reluctantly.  Tom argues, seemingly by knee jerk rather than from real tactical consideration, and Rachel growls at him that he can shape up or shut up.  Show of force it is, they decide after a vote.

"Operation Hannibal," Jake says.  "The Animorphs with me, at the head of the formation.  Visser Three as well, and Toby and Arbron.  Tom, I need you to organize as many morph-controllers as will listen and figure out how to array them.  Alloran, same goes for the remaining hork-bajir-controllers. Figure out your own positions, then tell me where you'll be."

«Understood, Prince Jake,» Alloran says.

"Pilots."  Jake looks at Visser Three.  "Give me names.  I'm talking speed, maneuverability.  Not distance flying, close quarters."

"Teaglea 439," Visser Three says, "Aukua 1028.  Eualea 0193."

"Find them," Jake says.  "Tell them what we need.  Now, snipers.  Someone who can aim."

«Arbron,» Alloran says immediately.

«No good,» Arbron points out.  «I'm needed on the ground to diplome for the taxxons.»

"Koko can hit a bird of prey on the wing while leaning out the side of a moving helicopter," Tom says, beckoning a dark-haired woman forward.  "And that's with a human-made pistol."

The woman who steps into their circle flushes dark red.  "Why the hell would you phrase it like that," she hisses, looking not at Tom but at Tobias.

Tom shrugs.  "Sorry," he tells Tobias.  "She can hit a moving target from a moving platform.  Better?"

«I doubt it was a close friend of mine,» Tobias says.  «It's fine.»

"Sniper covered," Jake says.  "Now, for the taxxons' rearguard—"

"Enough!" Visser Three says, so loud that Eva's voice cracks.  "Explain instead: what exactly are we planning for?"

"A show of force."  Jake remains completely level.  "Followed by a civil conversation.  And if that fails..."  He smiles sadly around at this strange mixed team.  "We defend ourselves.  Even if we can't hold that ground, then at least we'll have a few andalite hostages once we're done."

• They're exhausted, every one of them, so much so that their thinking has gone vague.  Jake orders everyone to get some sleep, then does his best to obey.  Tobias nests among the hork-bajir, head tucked into his feathers.  Toby sleeps next to him in that odd hork-bajir crouch.  Tom seemingly drops unconscious in a matter of seconds; Jake's jealous.  Only Marco doesn't even try.  Instead he sits awake, cold coffee clutched in both hands, and he watches his mom's body.  All night long.  Just to be sure.

• The following morning, the phalanx of ships sweeps over the low rise, two Blade ships at the vanguard and long sweeping skirts of Bug fighters training on either side.  Over sixty ships, all with dracon fire readied and morphers or hork-bajir inside. Half the military force of the Yeerk Empire, almost the entire Earth Resistance.  Pee-your-pants kind of force, as Tobias put it.

"Marco?" Rachel asks.

They're crammed into the second Blade ship, with maybe enough room to squeeze past each other if one person really needs the bathroom, and that's about all.  The Blade ship bridge can comfortably hold 25 human-controllers if needed; right now there are over 50 of them squashed in there, and almost a hundred in the surrounding corridors.

"Uh-huh?" Marco says.

"What the fuck are you humming?" Rachel says.

"'Ride of the Valkyries.'  Duh."

"Marco?"

"Rachel?"

"Why the fuck are you humming?"

"We need theme music.  Also duh."

"Do we?"

«No, no,» Arbron weighs in.  «He has a point.»

«We are about to go into battle,» Alloran growls, «for the entire planet.  He is distracting and aggravating everyone on board with that... noise.»

"We all remember our positions," Jake says.  "And we've been over the plan.  Unless there's something else that needs discussing, I don't see why not let him hum." All right, he finds it annoying too. But not nearly as annoying as Alloran speaking to his team that way.

«Yes, reviewing our intelligence would be an excellent use of this time,» Alloran says, either ignoring or misinterpreting Jake.  «Arbron, local weather?»

«Absolutely!» Arbron says brightly, leaning over the computer.  «Wind's south-southwest, point oh-oh-one-two standards speed — that's about four miles an hour, for the locals — and the terrain is nice and smooth.  I must say, gentle beasts, it is a beautiful day to die.  Marco, sing us a human song of celebrating good weather!»

"Certainly, my good man!"  Marco launches into a slightly off-tune rendition of "Walkin' on the Sun," Arbron bobbing his head along.

They're in a loop, it's quickly becoming clear, feeding off each other's manic energy, and everyone else is trapped in here with them.  Jake is starting to regret his official stance of indifference to the humming.

"I will murder you," Rachel promises through her teeth as Marco gives way to "Soak Up the Sun".  "Slowly."

«You do that!»  Arbron perks up, spines straightening.  «Deny those dirty andalites the chance!»

«If we are to die, Warrior Arbron,» Alloran says severely, «Would you not prefer to spend your last moments with a single modicum of dignity?»

It's then that one of the other taxxons, Hsssreestkrassth if Jake remembers the name, makes a comment.  He doesn't catch most of the words, but there's something in there about impermanence.  Maybe the taxxon equivalent of "some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you," if he had to guess.

"Dying with dignity is still dying?" Tom suggests from the helm, by way of translation.

Hsssreestkrassth nods.

«Hey Alloran!» Arbron says, even louder over the continued humming.  «Reminds me of a great joke!  A war-prince rolls up to the med tent, and the medic goes 'morph it off, we're all out of drugs.'  'Actually,' the war-prince says, 'I'm just here because I need help getting this stick out of my—'»

«ARBRON!» Alloran thunders.

The entire Blade ship falls silent in shock.

«Jeez louise,» Tobias mutters in private thought-speak.  «No need to pull out the Visser Three voice.»

«Sorry,» Arbron mumbles, sagging.  «I'm nervous.»

Alloran sighs.  «We all are.  That's—»

«And when I get nervous, I get hungry.»

And would you look at that, Jake marvels, turns out everyone just found nearly eighteen inches of space they hadn't realized previously existed.  Maybe even a full two feet, judging by the size of the gap that just opened up around Arbron and Hsssreestkrassth.

«Very well.»  Alloran's tone invites everyone present to marvel at the absolute saintly depths of his patience in the face of such suffering.  «You were saying?»

«How about a taxxon joke?» Arbron says, and that's definitely an evil grin on his face.

"Sure!" Marco says, way too fast.

«So a taxxon walks into a bar,» Arbron says.  This has got to be an indirect translation, but sure.  «You know the type: senior, svelte, has been just about every sex out there and knows their way around.  So the bartender goes 'just for you, we got a special on jruba meat, ten bucks for six pounds.'  And the taxxon says, 'no thanks, I'm newly single.  Widowed, actually.'»

There's a moment of silence as everyone parses this one, and then a collective groan of disgust as everyone figures it out.

"I honestly don't know what I expected," Rachel mutters.

Hsssreestkrassth suggests a different joke.

«Okay,» Arbron says, «So a mated pair of taxxons are out expanding the ceiling of a satellite tunnel, and all of a sudden rocks fall and split the breeder open.  Their fertilizer takes one look at where they're injured and the meat's coming out, and says—»

"No offense," Rachel says, "but are there any taxxon jokes that don't involve cannibalism?"

Arbron and Hsssreestkrassth exchange a glance.  Hsssreestkrassth makes a suggestion.

«No, they count eating a friend who volunteered as cannibalism,» Arbron explains.

Hsssreestkrassth asks a different question.

«Eating a stranger, also cannibalism,» Arbron says.

Hsssreestkrassth goes again.

«I'll ask,» Arbron says.  «Hey Marco, do humans count eating another human as cannibalism if you don't have any other food and the alternative is dying?»

"Yep," Marco reports, "still cannibalism."

Hsssreestkrassth suggests something else.

«Eating a human who died of natural causes,» Arbron says, «and you just, like, found their body —»

"Still cannibalism."

Rolling their eyes, Hsssreestkrassth says something that sounds sarcastic.

«Yeah, they even think eating parts of your own body counts as cannibalism,» Arbron says.  «It's all cannibalism.»

Hsssreestkrassth makes one last suggestion.

«Marco.  If you cook a human before eating their body—»

"Yep.  Still counts."

«Eating a fellow member of one's species counts as cannibalism,» Alloran snaps.  «Regardless of circumstances.  I have no idea how we ended up here, but it is time for a new subject of conversation.»

"Um, yeah." James raises his hand.  "Can we go back to talking about how we're all gonna die?"

Arbron and Hsssreestkrassth have a long conversation then, gesticulating with tiny hands and disagreeing on several points from the looks of things.  «Yep,» Arbron reports at last, «even in thought-speak, it's all one word: cannibalism.»

Hsssreestkrassth lets out a terrifying burst of laughter.

«Hey, andalites can't help it,» Arbron says, still using open thought-speak for some reason.  «They're a very primitive species who don't know any better.  They don't even go into tunnels and caves if they can help it, much less a proper hive, because they have this stupid superstition about not being able to breathe if they can't see the sky.  So it's not their fault they're so backward.»

"Hey Arbron!" Marco says brightly, "How do you tell a Level Six civilization from a Level Five one?"

Jake stiffens — now they're really treading on taboo ground.  Non-andalites aren't supposed to know that they're classified that way, much less that humans are Level Six to the andalites' Ten, while the taxxons are considered Five.

«I don't know, Marco,» Arbron says, «How do you te—»

"We're here!" Tom half-shouts, and Jake expels an entire lungful of air in relief.

• Before the leading Blade ship has fully landed, its hatch has opened and two dozen hork-bajir-controllers have dropped to the ground of the overgrown parade field.  Another two-foot drop, and Eva's body has step-fallen onto the ground below.  The knee-high grass is barely ruffled by the wind, the sun bright at Visser Three's back.

Beside the controllers' Blade ship, Jake's team is spilling onto the ground at an equally rapid rate, not nearly so tight in formation.  "All right," Jake calls.  "You guys know what to do."

Tobias takes wing, and Ax morphs fast to follow him.  Cassie and Rachel begin to morph as well, same morph, Rachel starting first but Cassie rapidly catching up and then passing her.  When Jake is flanked by two African elephants that tower over his head, Cassie wraps her trunk delicately around his middle.  Lifting him in the air, she sets him onto Rachel's back.

«Hold on tight,» Rachel comments.

Behind them, Collette and Tuan and half a dozen ex-controllers are finishing their morphs.  Same morph.  Large enough to tower over a hork-bajir.  Powerful enough to kill an andalite in unarmed combat.  Delicate enough to work a dracon beam, like the one that Rachel holds in the end of her trunk.  Massive enough that the earth itself cracks under their footfalls. Marco's in gorilla morph, of course, while Pedro and Kelly are rhinos.  Loren goes hippo, and so does Elena.

Only Alloran stands out.  Twice again as tall as an elephant, the size of an eighteen-wheeler turned on end and given hooked claws at the end of four different hands, each single finger as large as Jake's entire body.  Aijarba, Ket will tell Jake later, is the name for this creature from Father Deep.  Long extinct, its only remaining echo this copy of its DNA carried in the body of the person who destroyed its entire species.

Rachel swaggers forward at the head of their column, ground jumping at their every footfall. Visser Three moves in parallel, ordered ranks of hork-bajir and taxxon at his back. All together they're a mass of sheer power that could probably tear the Dome ship itself to shreds, if they so chose.

The group of hundred-odd war-princes standing across the meadow doesn't look quite so swaggering-tough now.  In fact, as Jake's army advances, peering down at them across the shrinking distance, they're starting to look downright small.

• «Greetings, humans.»  The guy who steps forward is the kind who wears his battle scars with pride, and looks down at everyone even when he has to look up.  Marco dislikes him on sight.  «I am War-Prince Offeran-Jibril-Castant, and this you see before you is Captain Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrouss, head of the War Council and Commander-in-Chief of the Andalite Navy.»

Arbron twitches at the name, looking at the head of the andalite phalanx with new interest, and Marco sees Alloran stiffen in surprise out of the corner of his eye.  So this is The head honcho.  He'd guessed as much from the title, but their reaction confirms it.  Good.  He's sick of middle men.

"I am Visser Three, Esplin nine-four-six-six-prime of the Hawjabran Pool," the visser announces in Marco's mom's voice.  "You see before you War-Prince Jake Berenson, Visser One of the Yeerk Empire and supreme leader of the human species."

Jake flinches at visser one, and looks downright nauseated at supreme leader of the human species.  «Keep it together,» Marco hisses in private thought-speak, even though he's pretty sure he'd run screaming from that introduction in Jake's shoes.  «Ignore the hot air, Big Jake.  Eyes on the ball.»

"Captain Lirem," Jake says, and now he sounds steady.  "Thank you for agreeing to meet.  You will now leave Earth in peace, and return to where you came from.  In exchange, we will stamp out all yeerk infestation on this planet through a peaceful transfer of form using the morphing technology.  You will, in effect, win the war.  With no further cost of lives to either side."

Lirem glances at Offeran, one stalk eye only, and Marco can tell they're conversing where no one else can hear.  «We reject these terms outright,» Offeran says.  «You will return the morphing cube to us, and all other stolen andalite technology.  We will maintain a quarantine on Earth to ensure no yeerks spread outward from this planet.  In exchange, you will be allowed to live.»

«Fuckers,» Rachel comments, in what Marco sure hopes is private thought-speak.

«We knew this was probably coming,» Cassie reminds her.  «We're not giving up, okay?»

«Look at their knees,» Marco adds, scanning the ranks of andalites beyond that front row of bigwigs. «Knocking together like reeds in a storm.» This is metaphorical, since andalites' knees aren't even set that close together, but they've been around Ax long enough to know what nerves look like: stiff tail, flattened ears, a break in discipline that involves pointing both stalk eyes at a single threat. And right now there are a heck of a lot of stalk eyes staring up at the line of creatures that could — in theory, anyway — eat every one of these little blue deer for breakfast.

Toby steps forward then, three strides into no-man's land.  "Enforcing your plan," she says, "will require great loss of life.  Possibly every life on Earth, if your history is anything to go by."

«I don't know what propaganda or lies you've been fed by your yeerk masters,» Offeran starts, «but—»

«What lies, exactly?» Alloran asks, tone very mild.

A nasty silence falls.  Toby's hork-bajir.  One of the last thousand hork-bajir in the known universe.  She's a walking object lesson in the excesses of the Andalite Navy.  And Alloran's right: if he's on their side, then Offeran can hardly claim the information about the Quantum Virus is thirdhand.

From the direction of stalk-eye gazes, Marco can tell an intense discussion is going down among the andalites.  Yeah, they don't have an easy counter to that one.  And it's a real blow to their image of themselves as benevolent protectors of the galaxy, so they're bound to get defensive.

«Tobias?» Marco calls, in thought-speak only the Animorphs can hear.  «How's it going?»

«Busy.»

Marco gets why he's terse, but — «Ax?» he asks.

«We haven't failed yet,» Ax reports.  «How do your negotiations fare so far?»

«We're all braiding each other's hair and singing kum-ba-yah,» Marco reports.  «Lirem's about to propose marriage to Jake, and ask Visser Three to be their Maid of Honor.»

Jake murmurs something where only Rachel can hear.  «Cut the chatter,» she passes on.

«Enough of this!  ENOUGH!»  The new voice thunders over the clearing, so overwhelming Marco flinches in spite of himself.  Lirem, he's guessing, speaking up at last.  «I will not lower myself to bicker with traitors and nothlits and lesser species over terms posed by parasites,» Lirem announces.  «This farce ends now!»

Marco turns 90 degrees, toward the fourth row of their ugly little army.  Makes eye contact.  Says, «Sounds to me like that's your cue.»

And though they didn't script this, at all, Jake has an almost-smile on his face when Prince Gafinilan steps through the ranks of the Earthlings to stop next to Toby.  «I am neither nothlit nor traitor, nor lesser species,» he says calmly.  «I am War-Prince Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad, former XO to Prince Elfangor, veteran of the Battle for Anati and the Battle for Earth.  And I stand by this hork-bajir's statement, and this human's.»

That gets a lot more muttering in the ranks, from the direction of the stalk-eyes. Some downright shifting in discomfort.

"The way I see it," Jake says, "by refusing our terms, you've left yourself only two choices. Wipe us out from space, and lose every one of your allies as they turn on the butchers of the galaxy. Or fight here on the ground, and lose."

«It doesn't matter,» Offeran says quickly.  «Your terms are ridiculous, and will not be permitted.  And you are in no position to negotiate.»

"Aren't we?" Jake asks.

Offeran narrows his eyes.

Jake's right hand drops, a long sweeping motion.  Be ready, their agreed-upon signal.

«Ax,» Marco hisses, still speaking privately.  «Now would be good.»

«Let's just pretend this is a tiny bit difficult and we don't appreciate distractions,» Tobias bites out.

«We have your entire planet surrounded, you stupid little ape,» Offeran snaps.

"Arbron?" Jake says out loud.

The signal goes past Marco, inaudible but still obvious.  Because that's when an andalite from the dead center of the Navy phalanx falls over, convulsing and screaming in pain.

They really should've done a little more research on Earth animals, Marco thinks, before they agreed to a meeting here of all places. In foot-high grass.  Underneath a sunny sky.  Amidst so very many newly-nothlited taxxons.

It is then, of course, that all hell breaks loose.

• In the next single second of combat — 

Twenty-six andalites drop.  Snakebite won't kill morphers.  Unless it's ten or more taipans acting in concert. 

Reinforcements flow from the Dome ship even as they fall.  Firing shredders as they go.

"HORK-BAJIR!" Jake bellows.  As one being they leap into the air, effortlessly clearing their own front line to land 50 feet deep amidst the enemy.  Some are free, some controllers.  All know how to use those harvest-blades to kill.

Marco has moved, arms wrapped around Visser Three, tiny body pressed close to his chest.  Eight shredder blasts slam into him at center mass.  He falls.

Erek drops his illusion. James's arrowhead of raptors screams down out of the sky, seemingly from nowhere, talons coming for eyes and throats. They should be easily shot down, but to aim at this angle would require looking directly into the full force of Earth's sun.

Rachel charges, heedless of fire.  84,000 pounds of Earth's unfriendliest herbivores charging with her.

A shredder blast takes off Kelly's front leg at the hip, and she bleeds out before hitting the ground.

• —and the line of Bug fighters sweeps over the hill.

• Time resumes.  Jake is morphing atop Rachel's back at top speed, staring desperately hard at the andalite leader who backs toward the Dome ship surrounded by his warriors.  No time to look for Cassie, for his lieutenants, for his brother.  No time, no space, for what his eyes just saw of Marco to reach his brain.  Not now.  He leaps from her back, and later he will apologize for how his claws gauge her skin, but not now.

A tail blade opens a long line in Jake's flank, orange blooming red, but it's not enough to stop him.  He impacts Lirem with every claw extended, landing with such force that he feels two of those delicate andalite legs and half a dozen ribs break on under him.  With a cat's superhuman reflexes he grabbed that tail in midair, clamped between his teeth a foot down from the blade where he now stands atop his fallen foe.

The andalites around them all freeze, shredders pointed Jake's way, unable to fire from their current position.

Somewhere behind their backs, seemingly very far away, Alloran is tearing through their ranks with horrific ease.  Every opening he produces, a dozen hork-bajir and taxxons sweep into to mop up the carnage.

«If he starts morphing,» Jake says, «he dies.  Anyone moves toward me, he dies.»

«Then I die!» Lirem shouts.  «I am the servant of the People, I am the servant of my prince.  My life is not my own, when the People have need of it.»  He twists his stalk eyes around to look directly at Jake when he speaks the next words.  «Dome ship Elfangor, fire all dracon cannon.  Wipe this continent off the planet.»

• "Of all the stupid, sentimental, disgusting pieces of flesh I have ever encountered," a familiar voice is saying over Marco's head, "you are truly the most idiotically weak-willed!  Your species is too stupid even to see that we come with superior culture and technology, and now THIS!"

He's demorphed, he realizes.  Back to human.  And when he squeezes his eyes shut, he can half-remember why: his mom's voice, shouting at him to resume human form IMMEDIATELY, his mom's hands shaking him so hard that his head flopped in order to keep him semi-awake through the pain.

Did... Visser Three just... save his life?

"And NOW," the visser is shouting, so loud his mom's definitely going to need a throat lozenge if she survives the day, "NOW you've gotten us ALL killed, you filthy!  Lumbering!  Apes!"

Marco sits up.  He looks past Visser Three, to where he's gesticulating.

There's a Dome ship hovering fifty feet off the grass.  Every single one of its weapons is pointed straight at them.

Oh.  So much for that almost-nice almost-moment they were having.

• The battle has frozen.  Fingers on shredder triggers, teeth bared mid-bite, everyone has stopped.  They're all looking straight up.  Wondering, no doubt, the same thing Cassie wonders: will the andalites on board sacrifice over a hundred of their number, to kill five hundred enemies?  «Please,» she whispers, not sure who she's talking to.  «Please.»

«Captain Lirem.»  The voice echoes in open thought-speak, from the Dome ship's helm.  «Sir, we do not seem to have shredder cannon capability at this time.  We don't understand why.»

And the Dome ship is still hovering. Not moving. Not firing.

«Captain Lirem,» Jake says overtop this.  Not letting go, even though he's shaky by now from loss of blood.  «You should've researched snakes before you came to Earth. And you definitely should've researched insects.»

Lirem twists weakly under him.  «What are you—»  

«The nothlit and the traitor I sent on board your ship have broken several key wires and chips,» Jake explains.  «Brilliant as Ax is, he also couldn't have done it without the help of Estral 792, the Yeerk Empire's foremost expert on reverse engineering andalite technology.  Your Dome ship is useless, Captain.  It can't even call its fellows for help.»

It takes a second for this news to sink in.  Jake's using open thought-speak, so soon it won't be just Lirem who knows.  

«Kill me, then!» Lirem shouts.  «Kill me, and end this!»

«Is that what you want?»  Jake is willing.  He won't enjoy it, and he won't unless he must.  But Jara Hamee is dead, because of this ugly little bureaucrat.  So is Liam, so is Erica.  If Jake must kill him, and resume negotiations with the next prince in the line of succession, then so be it.

«What alternative is there?» Lirem demands.

• Lirem learns, over the next several hours.  He records the message that Jake conveys, and that Ax transmits straight to the andalite homeworld.  He sits in silence as Alloran and Offeran argue out the legal details of the agreement to leave Earth as is, no further Navy intervention required.  He stares in contempt, but he does not object.  He lives, and over half his warriors survive as well.  Six thousand andalites and untold millions of Earthlings are allowed to live, who would otherwise have died.

• Which isn't to say that they've all made it through.

• Tobias lands next to the bright-scaled body, glittering gold amidst the spreading red against the grass.  «Morph,» he tells her.  Sth'ssskthsjhthsesis, or something like that, is her name.  «Morph, please!  Quickly.»

She doesn't answer.  Her breathing weakens, and falters, and at last disappears.

«Tobias.»  A different snake emerges from the grass, this one green-black and arrow-headed.  «Nothlit Tobias.  Will you honor Sth'ssskthsjhthsesis?»

Tobias looks from the dead taxxon to the living one.  «I don't...»

«Honor her sacrifice,» the taxxon says.  «I am too small in this form to do so, but it is our way.  We waste nothing.  We receive the energy of those who have gone before, and we hope to nourish our hive-siblings someday in our turn.  Will you take Sth'ssskthsjhthsesis's nourishment?»

And now Tobias looks again at the body.  And this time he does understand.  «Sth'ssskthsjhthsesis,» he repeats.  «Thank you for your sacrifice.  Go in peace.»  He's a little bit human, after all.  But he's a little bit hawk as well.  There's no hesitation, no moment of guilt.  Only the deep honor, to be included in this culture, as he bends his beak forward and begins to eat.

• They bury Kelly, and Elena, and Fal Tagut, near the edge of the battlefield.  They're not taxxons, and Cassie would hate to see their bodies begin the process of nourishing bacteria or insects where their loved ones can see.  She's getting a monument built in their honor, she vows.

There are dozens of dead snakes littering the ground, their number undetermined.  If there's a king cobra among them, she can't tell.  But there's no sign of Tom.

• "Hey Dad."  Two days later Rachel stands in the doorway of the Reno apartment, human for now.  "Hi, whoever you are.  I've come to take you back to the yeerk pool."

The yeerk inside her father lifts up his head, that devastating TV smile across his features.  "Rachel, kiddo!"

"Now."  She crosses her arms.  "I'm not a patient person.  And you may have noticed I'm not a nice one either.  So I'm not waiting around for it to be your turn to pop out and morph something.  We're doing this now."

The smile disappears, Dan's shoulders slumping.  "I'm allowed to live?"

"Yep."  She's not happy about it, doesn't bother pretending to be.  "Let's go."

• Traffic is at a standstill, roads either closed or blocked entirely by abandoned cars, across much of the country.  Only one vehicle moves east on I-40, a dirt bike stolen from a Yeerk Empire warehouse.  The young man riding it has no destination more exact than Georgia, but it's a free country, and he's alive.  He'll find them, no matter how long it takes.

• "Told you so."  Eva sits on the steps of the U.S. Hall of Justice, combing out the ends of Marco's hair as they wait their turn to be called.  "Esplin 9466's a harmless little pussy cat, compared to Edriss.  Wouldn't know an intelligent thought if it bit him in the butt."

Marco leans back, framed by his mom's legs.  She's going to give him a French braid, he just knows it, and next thing he knows he'll be caught by an NBC camera that way.  "If you say so," he says, less because he thinks she's being honest than because he's pretty sure he's done fighting with his mom for the entire rest of eternity.

• They don't know for sure that the blockade is gone, not for nearly three Earth months. Humans don't have an overabundance of spacecraft, after all, and yeerks' aren't allowed free travel even now. But then, just before the end of the year: a false comet across the sky over California. One andalite fighter.  Just one.  It's a tiny thing, barely bigger than a school bus, stubby and almost cute if you don't notice the shredder.  It lands in the empty lot just north of the shopping mall, one of several blocks leveled in the Bug fighters' attack on the town earlier that year.

An andalite aristh, and a nothlit of no particular species, are waiting there to watch it land.

«Aximili-kala,» Forlay whispers, stepping onto the ramp.

Ocho

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Taxxons