Cassie couldn't break the Controller cop's grip as she was being dragged to the Yeerk pool. This was a simple matter of physical strength. She saw no weapons within grabbing reach. Her horse morph wouldn't be able to break the grip either.
Her only chance was for her friends to reach her in time. Rachel, Jake and Marco were far away and on the ground. The cop handed her to the Hork-Bajir guarding the infestation pier. Those got her head into the Yeerk pool just as Tobias came swooping in. Talons tore up Hork-Bajir eyes, but a Yeerk slug had already found its way into her ear.
((Bardan four-seven-nine. Your body is now nothing more than a tool of the Yeerk empire!)) her head's new occupant gloated. She could not even scream, as she could while being dragged here. She instantly lost even that.
The Yeerk righted its new host. "Four morphers came here after my host – an elephant, tiger, gorilla and hawk!" the slug used her to say.
Taxxons and Hork-Bajir continued pouring into the commotion. They landed stunning blows on Jake and Marco. It made sense that their Dracon beams were already on that setting. Those Controllers also wished to recapture the hosts the Animorphs had freed earlier in the battle.
Teams of Hork-Bajir were dragging the tiger and gorilla towards the infestation pier like any other hosts. Visser Three had taught the Animorphs all too well that a Yeerk could control its host's morphing power like any other aspect of the stolen body.
Rachel was their last hope. Jake's tiger was several hundred pounds. Marco's gorilla morph was about four hundred. The elephant was fourteen thousand. Marco had specifically said he'd rather die than be infested. Jake was probably thinking the same thing.
Cassie wished she could put that terrible weight on her best friend's massive shoulders, but Bardan had other ideas. It purposefully strode her away from the carnage, both to avoid being a target and to deliver its host's intel.
"We caught two Andalites!" a human-Controller exulted. Cassie couldn't help but hearing it. Hitting Jake and Marco must've been as horrible as it looked. Bardan decided to force Cassie to watch the show.
Rachel's elephant was seriously wounded. She'd have to demorph and make a break for it. The crowd of escaping hosts had already been very much thinned, so Miss Berenson wouldn't have much cover. Even with her elephant body healthy, it would be too big to get back up the staircase.
"Demorph your new hosts," a Yeerk in a Hork-Bajir ordered.
((Yes, Sub-Visser Ten,)) Bardan told Cassie in a mocking tone.
"Humans? What is the meaning of this?" the Sub-Visser asked once the order was carried out.
"Seerow's Kindness allowed the rise of the Empire. Elfangor's Kindness may yet allow its triumph," Jake's Yeerk gloated. The slug was right. The Andalite prince's last-ditch gamble had apparently failed.
The Hork-Bajir were busy dragging the temporarily freed back to the Pool. When one of them tripped up Rachel, Tom had tried to pull his cousin free, only leading to both of them being captured. A hawk body lay on the cavern floor. ((Noooo!)) Cassie bellowed to the Yeerk in her head.
((Get used to it. A host's screams will never do it any good. Recognize your inferiority in the face of a superior species. The Yeerk Empire is not so foolish as you. You coddle inferior species, tree-hugger. To care about them, to not even eat any of them, denies your status as higher beings.)) Yeerks of course being higher still, it implied.
((We are higher beings because some of us don't sink to such primitive levels,)) Cassie answered indignantly, though the Yeerk could read that thought anyway.
((What is the point of having strength if you use it on the weak?)) Bardan pondered.
((This is the point,)) Cassie answered.
((Whatever powers you have, this is a pathetic weakness. The Empire shall beat that out of your kind,)) Bardan insisted. Cassie was just as determined to maintain those thoughts. She knew she could not act on them. She hoped she could find a way to. After all, hope was the one good thing in Pandora's box.
((I can of course tell what you're thinking – yours and Marco's appearance, Rachel and Jake's beliefs. How humans treat healthy members of their own species is indeed a waste,)) Bardan pointed out, though this species had very different ideas about how to put them to use.
Cassie supposed minorities might be amongst the disaffected people attracted to The Sharing.
Well, killing each other gives us plenty of practice in war, Rachel might have said. You won't find Earth people quite the easy marks you imagine, the friends both thought.
An Andalite body came running. ((I see we have caught the meddling kids from the construction site,)) Visser Three gloated. ((I demand a private audience with these four new subordinates,)) he added. It was abundantly clear that Visser Three was not a being to be ignored. When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.
((Such hosts are too good to waste on maintaining cover,)) the Visser pointed out.
"Make their families ours and it will be easier to serve the Empire," Marco's Yeerk suggested.
((Kitnar four-two-zero is no idiot,)) the Visser agreed.
Rachel's face twitched. ((Break your host, Aldor three-one-seven,)) Visser Three ordered.
"This is a particularly challenging one," Aldor pointed out. "But very worthwhile."
Agreement came out of Jake's mouth, now controlled by Hartnam six-two-four.
((The Council of Thirteen will be most pleased to hear of this latest success. They should soon expand the Visser and Sub-Visser ranks to support the success of this invasion. I would suggest all of you and Yeerks key to the capture.)) Knowing the Visser, this was a warning to not fail going forward.
Chapman called their parents about trouble the kids had gotten into at school. Cassie found that accurate in a cruel, twisted way. Marco's mother was dead. Rachel's parents were divorced, and her father was out of town. Where there were two possibilities, Cassie's dad and Jake's mom appeared.
Human-Controllers were in wait to drag all four of them to the Yeerk pool. Part of the cruelty was that once turned into hosts they would generate reasonable explanations or at least a lack of complaints regarding such disappearances.
The Yeerks planned to round up the other halves and Rachel's sisters soon enough. They enslaved people even younger than little Sara.
Judging by Bardan's attitude, the Yeerks would feel no need to maintain the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. That had been much of Cassie's existence, would help break her as hard as anything, and Bardan knew it. "I can't believe our hosts waste their time with animals that don't even feed these bodies." Maybe the Yeerks would switch them to livestock vets or have them figure out aliens. Failing that, they did have medical training, after all.
The birds and small mammals back at the Atkins barn were left to die or not taken in to begin with. The Yeerks correctly judged that this would create less of a disturbance. They planned to infiltrate The Gardens. Yeerk slugs could survive for a few hours in plain water and this could be used to move them between the big beasts and the pool.
"Minimal sensory input in our natural state, and then the Andalites come along and tease us with the possibilities of the galaxy. To have sight, to move around, to speak – we must have hosts," her father's Yeerk said, explaining the Yeerks' plight. "The Empire offers the best way to obtain these hosts."
"Can't expect them to like it," Cassie pointed out. This she and Bardan agreed on. To Cassie, that made it unconscionable. Bardan of course did not care.
"And the Andalites shouldn't meddle in it," Walter's Yeerk countered.
Who was left on Earth to resist the Yeerks? Cassie didn't want to lose hope, but it seemed the war had ended almost as soon as it had begun.