- his less-than No! Noffgreater-than Ax snapped. I was shocked. Ax is always polite. less-than No, Prince Jakeeagreater-than he said, a little more calmly. less-than We cannot slow down. greater-than "What's the matter?" Cassie asked him. Ax pointed at one of the vi ew screens before him. On the screen I saw stars. Then the moon came into view, a vast gray-and-white lightbulb. And silhouetted against the glowing moon was a shape. It was like some medieval battle-ax. The rear half was a two-headed blade. From the middle, like an ax handle, extended a long shaft. At the end of the shaft was a triangular head, very much like an arrow's point. It was black on black. And even if you had never seen it before and had no idea what it was, you'd know right away it was death. I had seen it. I knew what it was. "The Blade ship," I whispered. The Blade ship of Visser Three.
8:54 P.m. Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. Visser Three, the only Yeerk in all of history to take control of an Andalite body. Visser Three, the only Yeerk with the power to morph. "Can we outrun him?" I asked Ax. less-than No. greater-than "Can we outfight him?" I asked. My voice was a whisper. My mouth was too dry to work right. Ax turned his stalk eyes to look at me. less-than No, Prince Jake. We might get in a lucky shot. But the Blade ship is very powerful. This is the Blade ship that destroyed our great Dome ship. greater-than "Here he comes!" Rachel yelled in warning. A red glow illuminated the Blade ship as the Visser fired his engines and came for us. less-than We can try and run. Or we can take a chance on a lucky shoteagreater-than Ax said. He was looking at me. They were all looking at me. I grabbed the joystick. My hand was trembling. "I feel lucky," I said. It was an absolute lie, of course. I didn't even feel slightly lucky. But it sounded good. I caught Marco giving me a sardonic smile. He knew I was faking it. I felt Cassie's hand touch my shoulder for encouragement. less-than Hold on. You may be unsteady on your human legseagreater-than Ax warned. He threw the Bug fighter into a quick, tight turn. Ax was right. I almost fell over before the Bug fighter's systems compensated for inertia. Then Ax really lit up the engines and we leaped forward, straight for the Blade ship. less-than Ready to fireffgreater-than Ax said. It wasn't a question. less-than Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Wait until . . . NOWFFGREATER-THAN I swept the red target circle toward the black-diamond head of the Blade ship. I squeezed the trigger. And I kept squeezing. Brilliant Dracon beams stabbed toward the Blade ship. But at the same instant, the Visser fired! Dracon beam hit Dracon beam. ZZZZZOOOOOWWWW! An explosion of light so intense I could actually see through my own hand. I could see Cassie's teeth inside her head! WHAAAMMMPPPH! I was thrown against the ceiling. I fell to the floor and rolled, out of control. Rachel landed on top of me, knocking the wind out of me. The Bug fighter was spinning. My eyes were filled with balls of light, like suns inside my own head. Spinning . . . spinning . . . spinning . . . And with each turn I was thrown hard. Into Ax. Into Marco. Tobias batted his wings wildly, trying to get some control. It was like we had all been tossed into a washer on spin cycle. Then, with a sickening lurch, the Bug fighter came upright. There was a floor again. And a ceiling. And through the window, there was a planet. Earth. Big, blue, and getting closer very, very fast. "We're going down!" Rachel yelled. "Ax! Ax! We're going down!" Ax scrambled to his hooves and made his way back to the controls. less-than Too fastffgreater-than he said. less-than We're going down too fastffgreater-than less-than Lookffgreater-than Tobias cried. less-than 0ver there. To the left. We're not alone. greater-than Tumbling down alongside us, just a mile away, was the Blade ship. It was twisting and twirling and falling, just like us. "Wait . . ." Cassie said, sounding more confused than terrified. "It's daylight in the western hemisphere." "Do I care?!" Marco yelled. "We're going down!" "It was dawn in the Middle East," Cassie insisted. "Now it's daylight in the western hemisphere." Suddenly, friction flames began glowing from the nose of the Bug fighter. We were going back into the atmosphere. "Ax, can you pull us out of this?" I demanded. less-than like am slowing our descenteagreater-than he said. less-than We are slowing down. B. . . but I don't think it will be enough. greater-than "Great," Marco moaned. "At least the Blade ship will go down with us," Rachel said. "Does that make you feel better, Xena?" Marco grated. Rachel actually smiled. It was a sad, brief smile. "Not much better," she admitted. less-than Ten seconds to impactffgreater-than Ax said. less-than Ten . . . nine . . . eight. . disgreater-than FLASH! I was no longer in the Bug fighter. I was square dancing. I was giving Rachel a resentful look as I bowed to her in time with the music. What the ... FLASH! less-than Four. . . three . . . hold onffgreater-than I saw green. Green on green, rushing up at me. And then we hit. And for a while, I didn't see anything at all. Time Unknown. 00! HOO! HOO! HOO! HOOHOHOHO-HOHO! HAH! HAH! KEEYAAAH! KEEYAAAH! KEEYAAAH! I woke up. I woke up very suddenly. KEEYAAAH! KEEYAAAH! KEEYAAAH! YAHA- HAHAHAH! My head hurt, and the screaming noises didn't help. My back hurt, too. I was lying on the ground. On mildewed, rot ting leaves. Trees towered over me. Insanely tall trees. Ferns dipped down to tickle my face. There was a root or something under my back, which explained the back pain. But I was alive. KeRAW! KeRAW! KeRAW! VrrEEET! VrrEEEET! VrrEEEET! I sat up quickly. But that sent a spear of pain through my head. "Oh, man," I groaned. Then I saw the bug. The bug on my lap. The big, giant, MONSTER bug. I guess it was some kind of beetle. It had yellow and black stripes and something that looked almost like curved antlers. I swear it was six inches long. Or at least three inches. It would have been beautiful, if it hadn't been on me. "AAAAAHHH!" I yelled and brushed the beetle away. Then, I felt the itchy, crawling feeling on my leg. Ants! There were a dozen ants climbing up my right shin. I have been an ant. So you'd think maybe I have some sympathy for them. Wrong. I slapped at my leg till I was sure they were gone. I climbed to my feet. I felt woozy and confused. Where was I? Where were the others? I looked around. Green. Green everywhere. I mean, every where. "The visions," I said to no one. I was in a jungle. I knew that for sure. I'd never been in a jungle before, but there was no doubt in my mind. Maybe it was the monkeys and birds screeching at an insane volume all around me in the trees that gave it away. Maybe it was the creepers and vines. Maybe it was a flash of an amazing red-and-blue bird flitting through the branches. Maybe it was the fact that beetles really shouldn't be as big as that beetle had been. It was jungle, all right. Just like it had been in the weird flashes I'd been experiencing since that afternoon while square dancing. "That's what did it," I muttered. "It was the square dancing that drove me crazy." I decided to yell for the others. "Hey! Hey! Cassie! Marco!" It was like my voice had no power. The sound was just swallowed by the trees and ferns and bushes. "Okay, get a grip, Jake. Try to remember. You were coming down in the Bug fighter. Obviously you crashed. Duh. So look for the Bug fighter. It can't be far away." I glanced around me at the solid wall of green in every direction. The air was steaming with humidity. And the smells of overly sweet flowers and tropical rot made me feel like I was walking past some department store perfume counter. Then I spotted a tree where the top half had been snapped off. I started walking, trying to get a better angle on the broken tree. I saw a second tree, splintered. I began to notice what looked like a tunnel plowed through the dense foliage. A tunnel plowed through the trees and foliage should lead to the Bug fighter. "Or the Blade ship," I reminded myself. HOO! HOO! HOO! HOOHOOHOOHOO! HAH! HAH! HAH! The jungle was quieting down a little, but there was still some fairly crazy screeching from up in the tall trees. The jungle animals sounded annoyed. Probably they didn't appreciate someone crashing a Bug fighter into their home. And they didn't like my looks, either. The jungle floor was surprisingly clear. Down at foot level there wasn't much growing, just dead leaves. But at face level there were vines and bushes and ferns, all slapping me in the face as I pressed on. Suddenly I came to a clearing. A hole in the canopy where a tree had fallen. Bright sunlight shone down through the gap. And it was as if every species of plant life you could imagine was crowding into that sunny spot. I found myself facing an incredible wall of vegetation: a dozen types of
brilliant flowers, mosses so green they didn't seem real, small vines wrapped around bigger vines wrapped around tree trunks. It was the greenest place on Earth. There were even plants growing out of the smooth trunks of tall trees. I trudged on, back into the shadows of the forest, and when I looked up, I could no longer see the tunnel through the foliage. That's when I started to get really scared. I was in a jungle. And jungle isn't like forest, where you can usually see for hundreds of feet in any direction. Jungle presses in close around. It's like being buried in green. Ger-Ak! Ger-Ak! AKAKAKAK! "Marco! Cassie! Rachel!" I yelled, feeling the edge of panic. less-than How about Tobias8greater-than a voice said in my head. I looked up and saw nothing. Then I noticed him swooping down toward me from the high branches of a tree. "Tobias!" I yelled. I waved. Of course, he'd al ready seen me, obvious ly. But I was massively
re lieved. So I waved again. The red-tailed hawk body seemed almost bland, boring in the context of this jungle. He landed on a rotting, moss-encrusted log. "Tobias! The others?" less-than Everyone is aliveeagreater-than he said. less-than lt took a while to find everyone, though. I think the Bug fighter must have spun around a few times tearing through the trees. Cassie ended up practically on top of this snake. This extremely large snake. greater-than "Where are we?" less-than like don't knoweagreater-than Tobias said. less-than But I'm pretty sure this ain't home. Come on, follow me. It's not far. greater-than I followed Tobias, pushing and shoving and fighting my way through forest that seemed determined to stop me. I was dripping with sweat and gasping in the thick air. Then, a clearing. Not a natural clearing, but one created by the crashed Bug fighter. "Jake!" Cassie yelled and ran over to give me a hug. She had a nasty cut on one hand, which she'd bandaged with strips torn from her T-shirt. "You're alive," Marco observed. "For now," he added darkly. "I told you he'd be okay," Rachel said. The Bug fighter was upright, but one whole side looked as if it had been peeled back. You could see right to the inside. The left engine pod was cranked out at a sharp angle. Ax was inside the fighter. He lowered his head to peer at me through the hole in the fighter's side. less-than Prince Jake. I'm glad you're all right. greater-than "I'm glad I'm all right, too," I said. "Now . . . where are we?" "Where is easy," Cassie said. "Rain forest. Not Africa, because I've seen monkeys with prehensile tails. You know, tails they can swing by. Most likely, we're in Central or South America. Either the Costa Rican rain forest, or the Amazon rain forest." "I'm betting Amazon," Marco said brightly. "I'm also taking bets on whether we live long enough for me to collect on bets." I laughed. "You're always such an optimist, Marco." I turned back to Cassie. "S. Amazon rain forest, huh?" "Like I said, the question of where we are is fairly easy." "Cassie, why do I have the feeling there's something you're not telling me?" I asked her. "Remember when we were in orbit? Remember how it was night in North America, but the sun was just coming up over the Red Sea?" I shrugged. "I guess so." "Well, after we fired at the Blade ship, as we were going down it was daylight here. Over South America." It took me a few seconds to realize what she was talking about. Ax came trotting out of the Bug fighter. He wiped his hands on a rag. less-than Thanks to Cassie's observation, it seems pretty clear that when we and the Blade ship fired simultaneously and the Dracon beams intersected, we created what we call a Sario Rip. greater-than "A what? A Sario Rip? What's that?" less-than We blew a small hole in space-time. And were drawn in through that hole. greater-than "English, please," I warned. "Plain English, please." "We were blown through time, Jake," Cassie said. "We aren't where we want to be. And we aren't when we want to be." I stared at her. "Did we go forward or back? Are we in the past or the future?" less-than Yeseagreater-than Ax said. less-than lt's definitely one of those two choices. greater-than 1:22 p.m. Again. So let me just summarize here. We are probably in the Amazon rain forest. And we are either in our own past, or in our own future. We have no way to fly this Bug fighter out of here. We have no way of knowing if there's a city or town or even a road near here." I looked around at my friends. "Anyone have anything to add?" less-than like know that it is one twenty-two p.m.eagreater-than Ax said. less-than like just don't know what day or year it is. greater-than Andalites have the ability to keep track of time naturally. Like some kind of internal clock. It's useful. Of course, it's more useful if you know what century you're in. Cassie held up her hand, like she was in school. "The rain forest is full of poisonous snakes, poisonous insects, poisonous plants, and poisonous frogs." "Excuse me?" Marco said. "Poisonous frogs? Did you say poisonous frogs?" "Plus, there is at least one large predator-, the jaguar." "Love their cars," Marco said. "Right now we have no food and no water," Rachel added helpfully. "Also, no weapons." less-than Why do we need weapons8greater-than Tobias asked. less-than Morph into birds and we'll just fly out of here.greater-than "None of us can stay in morph for more than two hours," Cassie pointed out. "Realistically, we can't fly more than twenty or thirty miles an hour at best. That's maybe sixty miles per morph. And we could be a thousand miles from nowhere." "Besides," Marco said glumly. "What are we supposed to do? Find a town, make a collect call to our families and tell them we're in South America? "Hey, Dad, guess what? I'm in Brazil. Or maybe Costa Rica. Could you come pick me up?"'" "If there even