The Hork-Bajir aimed his Dracon beam that the Animorphs. A second Hork-Bajir came sprinting out of the ship to join the first. Cassie felt the first strains of terror growing inside her. Horses were no match for Hork-Bajir. Cassie tried to make herself run away, but she wasn't the only one who had a say in deciding what her body did. The stallion named Minneapolis Max was also a factor in the decision, and Max didn't feel much like running away. Cassie reared up, kicked the air with her broad, powerful hooves, and ran.

Cassie ran all right, right in the direction of the first Hork-Bajir that had come out of the Bug fighter. Cassie didn't want to do it, but she hadn't counted on Minneapolis Max's mind being this strong. Slade leaped forward, intending to help Cassie.

(Slade, what are you doing?!) Jake demanded. (Stop! Get back here!)

(Cassie's in danger; I'm going to go help her,) Slade said firmly. He heard Jake yell one more time for him to stop, and Slade closed his eyes briefly. He wasn't going to get off so easily this time. (Reprimand me later, okay? I'll come back from this, I swear.)

Slade had started off behind Cassie, but soon his frantic pace had brought him alongside her.

(Slade, what are you doing here?) Cassie asked.

(Helping you, if you'll have me.) Slade had added that last part just to be polite. He had no intention of leaving her to face her enemy alone, even if she did ask him to.

Slade was on Cassie's right, directly in the line-of-fire for the Hork-Bajir's Dracon beam. With a powerful surge of muscles, Slade managed to pull just a little bit ahead of Cassie. Trying to see well enough through his pathetic horse eyes to do what he was planning to was a challenge, but it was one Slade was more than willing to overcome.

Slade found that if he just looked hard enough at what he wanted to see, he could make out a reasonable amount of whatever he was looking at. Nothing like what he could see with his real eyes, of course, but almost enough to be passable. In this case, it was enough to let him attack the Hork-Bajir before the other could fire his weapon. Slade sunk his big, flat horse teeth into the Hork-Bajir's left bicep.

Horse teeth weren't the sharp, stabbing weapons of the wolf, or even comparable to the teeth of Slade's panther morph. But that didn't mean being bitten by them was painless in any way. The Hork-Bajir screamed, dropping his weapon, but not before Cassie had managed to kick him in the face. Slade let go of the Hork-Bajir's arm, just as Cassie landed hooves-first on the Dracon beam he'd been holding, crushing the weapon beyond repair.

(Now, everyone, RUN!) Jake shouted.

Cassie and Slade both turned away from the fallen Hork-Bajir warrior. The other helped his comrade to regain his footing, and the two Hork-Bajir took off in pursuit of the Animorphs.

(If those two catch up to us, we're dog food,) Rachel said grimly. (Two Hork-Bajir against seven horses? We don't have a prayer.)

All of the Animorphs knew that Rachel's assessment was true. Even a hundred horses wouldn't be able to win against two Hork-Bajir, so there wasn't much chance of seven even being able to survive.

(How fast are Hork-Bajir?) Cassie asked Rachel, who had once morphed a Hork-Bajir herself.

(Too fast,) Rachel said.

Looking back, Cassie could see that Rachel's assessment was true. The Hork-Bajir were steadily gaining on them, bounding like some grotesque, evil parodies of kangaroos. The Animorphs kept running, staying together for what feeble protection that would offer. When they saw the lights, the Animorphs almost stopped in their tracks. The lights turned out to be the headlights from a pair of Humvees.

The Air Force security forces were coming to investigate the rumor that some strange craft had landed out in the scrub. The Hork-Bajir hesitated for the space of a few more seconds, then turned and ran back into the Bug fighter. Skimming low over the rocks, and taking advantage of the fact that human eyes didn't see very well at night, the Yeerk ship took off.

The Animorphs kept running, passing through the high-beams of the Humvees' headlights and being completely ignored. The soldiers weren't out here to look at a bunch of wild horses. Although, they did find it somewhat amusing that the top brass, who had been engaged in studying an extraterrestrial artifact ever since it had com falling out of the sky, hadn't been able to handle a bunch of plain old terrestrial horses.

The Animorphs, for their part, were happy to get away from the Hork-Bajir that had been chasing them. But, they weren't all that pleased that they hadn't been able to figure out what that thing that the Air Force personnel were holding at Area 51 was. The Yeerks hadn't known either, and that fact made their failure a little bit more bearable, but only just.

(Well, that was stupid from start to finish,) Rachel said, summing up the opinions of the human members of the Animorphs. (We could have all been killed, and for what? Some little blue sword, and some other thing that the Yeerks don't even recognize.)

(Whatever that cube-thing was, it sure didn't look like a spaceship,) Marco commented.

(Not a spaceship,) Jake agreed. (But I don't think it looks like a weapon, either. But it really doesn't look like something that any human would make.)

(It is not a spacecraft, or a weapon. But, you are right about the fact that it was not made on Earth,) Aximili said.

(Well, I guess we're never going to be able to find out what that thing was,) Cassie said, sighing silently.

(Why do you say that?) Ax asked.

(Because it's not worth risking our lives just to get another look. And, if the Yeerks don't even know what it is--)

(Of course the Yeerks don't know what it is. No Yeerk has ever been on board an Andalite Dome ship,) Aximili cut in.

(Ax, are you telling us that you actually know what that thing back in the hangar is?) Tobias asked, once all the Animorphs had stopped walking and turned to stare at Ax.

(Yes. I had started to tell you earlier, but we were interrupted,) Aximili said.

(So, what was that thing?) Slade asked.

(It is a disposable module of the type used in the first generation of Andalite Dome ships. When these types of modules were used up, they were jettisoned into space. They were normally aimed at a star, so that they would be burned up without a trace. This one must have somehow drifted off course, and been caught in Earth's gravity well.)

(So, its some kind of engine?) Marco asked.

(Is it a weapon?) Rachel asked.

(No. It is… this is somewhat embarrassing for me to talk about.) Aximili took a deep breath to calm himself, and then continued with his explanation. (It is an Andalite Dome ship's modular waste disposal system.)

For a full minute, there was complete silence on the part of the Animorphs. Then most of them started laughing.

(You mean to tell me that the famed, fabled Area 51, The Most Secret Place on Earth, the Holy Grail of conspiracy nuts, is hiding the secret of an Andalite toilet?) Marco asked, once he had managed to stop laughing so hard.

(Only a very primitive model,) Aximili said condescendingly. (Since the time that this one crashed on Earth, there have been huge technological improvements.)

Slade was starting to get really annoyed with Ax's attitude. The arrogance of the guy just really rubbed him the wrong way. It was one thing to be confident in your own abilities, but the Andalite took it farther than that. And the unstated but otherwise obvious implication that humans were all a bunch of stupid idiots… that was something that Slade knew he wouldn't be able to deal with in large doses.

(Is there any chance, even the smallest, that the guys back in Area 51 could find out anything important from studying that… thing back in the hangar?)

(No, Prince Jake. There is not the slightest chance that studying that particular model will give your people the ability to travel though space. Or even to design weapons.)

(Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought,) Jake said.

(Well, since we now know that that little excursion was pointless in a big way, why don't we all get along home?) Marco suggested.