Well, you know the rest.
"About time to head on home, huh?" Jake asked me.
154 I nodded. "Yeah. As it is, I'm probably grounded."
"Oh. I hope not. I was, uh . . . I don't know, I was thinking maybe of heading down to the beach tomorrow. You know, if the weather's nice."
Rachel batted her eyes at me and gave me an "I told you so" look. Then, just to be obnoxious, she said, "Oh, I don't know, Jake, I don't think Cassie really likes the beach all that -"
"I love the beach," I said, shooting her a death look. "And if I don't get grounded, I'd love to go with you, Jake."
Jake blushed, waiting for Marco to give him grief. But Marco just shook his head in a parody of sadness. "Fine, Cassie. Run back to Jake now that you're all big again. I guess that's the end of our plan to populate the world with a new race of tiny people."
The Helmacron ship powered up and rose toward the night sky. And receding in the distance, we heard the thought-speak voices.
«AII females will now grovel before our tremendous power! You will worship us as your true masters! It is the male Helmacron who shall make all tremble!»
«Never will females be anything but absolute
155 rulers over all males! We shall dominate the entire universe, but we'll start with you!»
We headed home, leaving the Helmacrons, female and male, to work things out sensibly among themselves. Knowing, with absolute certainty, that there was no chance they would.
156 Don't miss
Animorphs
#25 The Extreme
I stopped breathing. Hork-Bajir were everywhere. Everywhere!
This wouldn't be a fight. This would be a slaughter.
Then, at the center door, he appeared.
«Well, well, well. Here aboard my own ship. How nice of you to come around to see me. Can I offer you anything? Something to drink? To eat? Or maybe just a quick death?»
The Visser laughed. He had reason to laugh. Three doors open and filled with Dracon-armed Hork-Bajir.
«Give the word, Jake,» Rachel whispered. «Give the word and I swear I can at least get him,»
Three doors? Wasn't there a fourth door? And why wasn't it open?
«Ax!» I said urgently. «l don't want to turn around and look, but is there a fourth door?»
157 Ax swiveled one stalk eye. «Yes! It must lead to the exterior of the ship. But there is a control pad protecting the emergency manual release. It is undoubtedly coded. It would take me hours to find the security code.»
Of course. And Visser Three knew that. But maybe this wasn't a case for subtlety. I flexed my canned ham fist. «Jake! There's another door behind us. A keypad. Maybe I can break it open.»
«And get fried before you twitch,» Jake pointed out.
«No. The Yeerks will not fire weapons in here. Not with those canisters,» Ax said. «They are obviously valuable specimens.»
Jake reached a very fast decision. «Rachel. Next word Visser Three says, you slam the nearest canister. Marco, The keypad. Ax, back Marco up. Tobias, Cassie, and me, straight at Visser Three, a feint.»
I was getting ready to make a lame pun about "feint" and "faint" when the Visser spoke.
«Surrender now and -»
Before he could get to his fourth word, Rachel struck! A mountain of grizzly slammed hard into the nearest cylinder.
WHAM!
Nothing!
Too late, I'd already spun around and bounded toward the keypad.
158 «KILL THEM!» Visser Three screamed.
"Tseeeeer" Tobias screamed.
"Hraawwwrrr!" Rachel bellowed. She slammed all her weight this time, all her strength.
Crack!
A single crack, a small, pathetic crack, appeared in the cylinder wall. The mist began to seep out.
Jake, Cassie, and Tobias attacked. No other option now.
I saw a flash of orange and black leaping straight at Visser Three. No less than half a dozen Hork-Bajir enveloped him, blades flashing.
I saw the keypad. I drew back my pile-driver arm and slammed it with all my might. It crumpled like a tin can.
«Rip away the metal!» Ax yelled, even as he used his reversed stalk eyes to aim a sonic-boom tail snap at a rushing Hork-Bajir.
Rachel withdrew, backed up a dozen feet, and ran all-out, full-speed, on all fours at the cylinder. A small army of Hork-Bajir leaped after her.
Just then, I saw Cassie flying through the air. Not a leap. She'd been thrown, bloodied and broken.
Tobias was in the air, harassing Visser Three, aiming for his vulnerable stalk eyes.
159 WHAM!
Rachel hit the cylinder. A flailing mob of Hork-Bajir literally covered her.
And then the cylinder shattered.
CRASH! It fell in pieces.
Whoosh! The mist inside billowed out. Hork-Bajir screamed and tried to back away. But too late! The clouds of mist caught them, freezing any body part it touched.
Not freezing, as in it made them cold. Freezing, as in solid. Like stone gargoyles. I saw one puzzled Hork-Bajir gape in horror as his left leg simply broke off and lay on the deck like a piece of a statue.
The mist hit Rachel, too. But she had a thick coat of fur. The fur froze and shattered off like thousands of brittle needles.
I ripped away the loose metal of the keypad.
«Squeeze that handle!» Ax ordered.
I squeezed.
Too late, Visser Three saw his mistake. «Bridge!» he roared. «Bridge, get us up! Get us up!»
The outer hull door began to slide. It opened onto empty whiteness.
«Jake! Cassie! Everyone! Door open! Bail!» I yelled.
The freezing mist was swirling around the
160 floor now, forcing the Visser to back up. But that didn't mean he wouldn't send his troops into it.
«After them! After them!»
Hork-Bajir plowed through the mist and found themselves on frozen feet. Feet with toes that broke off, with ankles that snapped.
Jake coiled his tiger muscles and took the mist at a leap. Tobias was first out the door. Cassie lay unconscious in a heap, with mist advancing on her.
Without hesitation, Rachel walked into the mist and lifted Cassie's wolf body with her teeth. The grizzly's left foot stayed where it had frozen. Rachel staggered to the door on a stump.
One by one, we tumbled out of the door and into emptiness.
K. A. Applegate, The Suspicion
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