SLASH!

A lightning-quick swipe with an arm blade, and I had a bright red line in my trunk. It was just a shallow cut, but it hurt.

"HhhhrrroooooREEEE-Unh!" I screamed.

I kept my speed, and plowed straight into the Hork-Bajir. Ten thousand pounds of fast-moving elephant.

The brave Hork-Bajir-Controller was out of the fight.

No time to stop. I saw Marco and Cassie take down the other Hork-Bajir.

"Two more Hork-Bajir coming!" Cassie yelled.

I backed up a few feet and slammed forward. I hit the shed with my head.

WHAM!

The four walls of the shed literally blew outward.

Like someone had set off a bomb inside it. The walls burst outward from the impact. The roof fell and then slid aside.

A blue barrel, like a beer keg, rolled away. A piece of debris stopped it. There were five other barrels, all standing there in a group.

"The oatmeal!" I said.

"The instant maple and ginger oatmeal!" Marco corrected gleefully.

"Get them!" a huge, thought-speak voice roared. The voice of Visser Three.

I turned my head to look. An entire army of Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and human-Controllers was rushing for us. There was no way out. No way at all.

And there, in the midst of the onrushing army, was Visser Three.

I wrapped my trunk around one of the barrels of confiscated oatmeal. I lifted it up like a feather. I saw the closest Hork-Bajir hesitate.

I threw the barrel in a high arc. It landed with a big, soggy splash, right in the middle of the Yeerk pool.

"lt's not sinking!" Cassie cried.

"Marco. Point the Dracon beam at the barrel. Now." The big gorilla raised his mighty arm and aimed the Dracon beam at the barrel.

"Your move, Visser," I said.

"Stop!" that awful voice roared.

And every living thing stopped. They barely breathed. Hork-Bajir stood poised as if they'd been frozen. When the Visser said "stop," you stopped. Period.

He came forward, pushing human and Hork-Bajir and Taxxon aside. He came forward till nothing separated him from us except a shield of three straining, awkwardly frozen Hork-Bajir and a twitching Taxxon.

His Andalite stalk eyes swept from side to side, sizing up the situation. His main eyes looked right at me.

"There's nothing in that barrel but garbage."

"Then you won't mind if my friend fires and blows it up." It was always deadly dangerous talking to Visser Three. In addition to an Andalite's body, he had an Andalite mind under his evil control. He might figure out that I was not an Andalite in morph, but a human.

He laughed. Not a nice laugh."There are perhaps a thousand Yeerks in that pool. The ... the product in that barrel might affect half of them before we could get it cleared up. Five hundred Yeerks. " He paused to consider. "And against that, I suppose you want your fellow terrorists released and a chance to escape."

"Exactly," I said.

Marco still held the Dracon beam aimed at the wallowing barrel.

"Then I'd better give you my answer," Visser Three said with silky menace.

Before he could say it, I knew. I'd seen it in his eyes. In his body language.

He was writing off five hundred of his own people. Condemning them to madness. He didn't care. It would be a setback, but that was all. Beyond that, he didn't care.

Visser Three cared for nothing.

Oh, wait. Visser Three did care about one thing.

No time to think. No time to plan. I surged forward suddenly, just as Visser Three was saying, "Destroy them -" I surged my five tons forward, trunk outstretched.

Visser Three leaped back. Right into a Taxxon who was following orders by freezing.

I plowed through the Hork-Bajir and reached for the Visser. My trunk went around his upper body.

FWAPP! His Andalite tail slashed!

Miss!

I squeezed my trunk, flexed the muscles in my neck and shoulders, and up went the Visser. I yanked him up off the ground.

FWAPP! He slashed again, and this time I bellowed in pain. The blade had hit the side of my face. It nearly cut right through one eye. The agony was unbearable.

But I couldn't hesitate.

I lifted the Visser high in the air. I heaved him, just as he slashed again.

Through the air he flew.

PAH-LOOOSH!

Visser Three hit the Yeerk pool.

I was reeling in pain. Pain like nothing I'd ever imagined.

"0h, no, Rachel!" Cassie cried.

I ignored her. No time for pain. No time. I had to play this out. Fortunately, I know just a little about Andalite physiology. See, they eat and drink through their hooves. Right now the Visser was absorbing the water of the Yeerk pool.

I glared with my one remaining eye at the Visser, floundering in the pool.

"Now do you care if we blow up that barrel?" I asked him. "Now do you care?" It turned out yes, yes, he cared. Visser Three would sacrifice hundreds of his fellow Yeerks to the oatmeal madness. After all, it was war, and sacrifices had to be made sometimes.

But those sacrifices obviously did not include him.

I kicked the rest of the barrels into the pool, just so Marco couldn't possibly miss. Then Cassie went off to free the others. The Hork-Bajir, the Taxxons, and the human-Controllers were still busy being very, very still. If any of them had shown initiative, they could have probably taken us out. They might well have been able to get Marco before he could hit one of the barrels.

But you know what? Terrified underlings never show initiative. The Yeerks there may have hated us. But they were terrified of Visser Three.

We freed Jake, Tobias, and Ax. Then we headed, very carefully, for one of the exits. We climbed the stairs backward, with Marco pointing the Dracon beam the whole way up.

Only because of Tobias did we see what happened next. Hidden behind my massive, pain-wracked bulk, he demorphed. Halfway up that interminable stairway, he resumed hawk shape. And it was his hawk vision that saw.