Chapter 6
It seemed as though time had stopped.
This was it. This was the end.
The Rachel raced forward, right towards the bridge of the Blade ship.
"Full reverse thrust!" I heard someone scream. It must have been the Yeerk captain, realizing what was happening.
It was a hopeless act of desperation. The Rachel plowed straight into the Blade ship's bridge. The impact disintegrated the bridges of both ships, and suddenly, we were out, floating in space.
It was freezing. I tried to flap my wings, but they wouldn't spread open. We were dead. I was going to die.
I looked at Santorelli and Jeanne. They were going to die out here, billions of miles away from home, and their families would never know what happened to them.
Jake was floating a little off to my left. His eyes were closed. He must have been praying.
Not that it would help us.
Marco, too, was praying. He was shivering. It wouldn't be much longer until we either suffocated or froze to death.
I saw Mendaresh, flailing his human arms. He was shouting something.
"I am the servant of the People," he said, gasping for air. "I am the servant of my prince."
I recognized what he was saying. It was the Andalite death ritual.
"I am the servant…of honor," Mendaresh continued, his voice becoming weaker as his air was used up. "My life is…not my own, when the People…have need of it. My life…is given…" His eyes closed.
Mendaresh! I cried.
He opened his eyes. "My life…is…given…for the People…" He inhaled deeply, trying to get the oxygen he needed. The oxygen that didn't exist out here in the vacuum of space.
"…for my prince…" Mendaresh inhaled deeply.
I wanted to hear the completed death ritual. It gave me comfort that, in death, I knew my death was not in vain. That I had not died for no reason.
You can do it, I told Mendaresh. You can do it.
"…and…for…my…HONOR!" Mendaresh said the last word with his last breath of air. He exhaled, and his eyes closed. His skin had begun to turn a pale blue.
My brain started shutting down. The hawk in me tried to fly away, but it was pointless. I couldn't…breathe…needed to…get…air…
"Someone should…have told me…space was cold," Marco wheezed. "I would have…brought a…coat."
My vision…going…gray…
Suddenly, I was standing up.
Standing up? I looked at my body. It was my human self.
I looked around. Jake and Marco were there, human as well. There skin was their normal color, not the bluish color of a suffocating person.
"Hey, I'm still alive!" Marco said. "I knew God loved me."
"The Ellimist," I said. "He stopped time and brought us here."
Jake nodded. He knew, as much as I did, that we were dying. Nobody was going help us. The Ellimist could, but it would break the rules of his war with Crayak.
Marco groaned. "Great. What does he want with us?"
The Ellimist appeared. He presented himself as an old, weak man. He looked like one of those wizened wizards from a child's book.
Despite his appearance, we knew the Ellimist was nearly omnipotent. He could reverse time, stop time, maybe even move time forward. There were probably many other things he could do that we didn't know about.
"What do you want, Ellimist?" I demanded. "What game do you want to play now?"
The Ellimist put his arms up. "I wanted to tell you what you have accomplished. By colliding with the Blade ship, you have just halted the beginning of an evil empire that would have encompassed the galaxy. Your sacrifice has spared the galaxy from life under harsh rule," the Ellimist said.
"Why should we believe you?" I accused. "A long time ago, you told us we would lose the battle on Earth. We won. You were wrong."
"I never said that, Tobias," the Ellimist responded gently. "I simply showed you a future that might have been plausible is you lost on Earth. I did not suggest that you were going to lose the war."
"Of course not," I said sarcastically under my breath.
The Ellimist can never be wrong. He just tells us plausible possibilities.
What a joker.
"Ellimist, can you answer a question?" Marco.
"Yes."
"Is there an afterlife? I just want to know if everything they taught us in Sunday school is true," Marco asked.
Jake wasn't amused. "Marco, this really is not the time-"
"I do not know," the Ellimist answered. "I have never died, so I would not know."
We were all silent. None of us pleaded to the Ellimist to save us. We knew he would do nothing. We were helpless.
Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light. The light faded, and then I was seeing pictures of my life. Memories that I had stored in my mind. Some of them I remembered, some I never even knew I had. It was someone had slipped a video of my life into a VCR.
FLASH! "Tobias, clean up your room!" my aunt shouted.
FLASH! "Any money you make goes towards paying the bills." My uncle.
FLASH! "Ahhhhhh, poor Tobias," mocked some unnamed bully.
Why were all the painful memories showing up? I didn't want to see these memories in my final moments. I wanted to remember the happy times.
FLASH! Go to your friends, Tobias. They are your family now. Elfangor's last words to me.
FLASH! This is so cool! Ahhhhhhhhh! Going flying with my friends for the first time.
FLASH! "I know who you are, Tobias." Rachel. Sweet Rachel.
FLASH! "Until then, we fight." Jake, finding out I was trapped as a hawk.
Instantly, I was back in reality. Suspended in space, next to Jake and Marco.
Jake broke the silence. He said softly, "Ellimist, can I ask you to do something?"
The Ellimist said, "As long as it does not break the rules, you may."
"Can you tell Cassie what happened here? Can you tell her that we're…you know, dead?"
The Ellimist looked thoughtful, and said, "Yes. I can do that for you."
"Okay. Thanks," Jake said.
I was about to ask-