Thanks to my reviewers. Let's moooove on.

Quillian: Thanks for another review! ; )

Birdie num num: Yip, Seerow has died. We all knew it was gonna happen.

Yeah, well you see I kinda thought he'd done too much moping so he'd be used to it by now. So not feeling sad means that, actually, he's practically blubbering.

Well, read on an see what he's gonna do!
I will write more! Well, until the end!

Elwing: We sort of knew that Alloran w\as going to end up mean. I blame it on the Hork-Bajir! shakes fist at Hork-Bajir

What I meant about children fighting wars is that instead of using the ready trained warriors they had. They rather used young teenagers. Maybe they don't see it as child abuse?
Well, I'm afraid I can't really help you on the fanfic side of things. I now one author coughKeedacaugh who REFUSES to finish her fics! All I can say is FINISH THEM!
Yeah, funnily enough I don't really think of myself as unhappy, but whenever I write this fic it always ending up sounding so depressing. Though it'd be weirder if he was happy about his kid and best friend dieing.

Irish Rage and Love: What do you get? Are you some kind of mind reader? But thanks, I was wandering whether I'd be able to simply join my fandom and the actual book series timeline. I actually had to work out the dates to make sure everything matched up!

No it's not over yet but we are close. Sad, I know. But I don't feel I should make the fic go on and on and on. If you can see the end that's great! But as you guessed, there are still a few shocks in store for Asculan.
Looking forwards to your next review.

The statement goes for all of you! Please read, enjoy, and review!

Chapter Nineteen

TailStrike

Andalite date: 8565.8

Earth date: 1970

(Welcome my warriors to the great Dome ship TailStrike. I know that for many of you this will be your first trip into deep space. Many of you arisths have great dreams of being heroes. Well, let me promise you…,) I surveyed each of the young arisths in turn. They looked scared and frightened, (…every aristh that has ever been under my command has become a great captain or prince.

We are some of the best warriors fighting the Yeerks. I won't say what most captains say to their new crew. We don't need heroes. We don't need some great warrior to single-handedly fight off the Yeerk scum. I need killers. It's as simple as that. Forget what they taught you about honour, do as I say and you will live. Kill and you will live. Be plagued by pesky morals and you will die.)

Harsh? Is that what you are thinking? I had heard and seen the way Feyorn addressed his new crew of the Dome ship StarSword. He had called for heroes. For brave warriors who would fight of the Yeerk filth but remain true to all we believed in.

He had not looked at Alloran standing wearily at the back of the crowd but us all, Alloran, Feyorn and I, knew exactly what he had meant.

I hated Feyorn for that. Alloran was my closest friend and Feyorn had cut even deeper into Allorans shame.

None of the other younger warriors knew of the crimes he had committed on the Hork-Bajir homeworld just over three years ago, but still, they knew he was disgraced and Feyorn's speech had just made it worse.

Why bother give false hope and dreams where there was none? The higher you leap the faster you fall, that was a saying I often heard Captain Noorlin use when I served under him aboard the StarGazer.

It was almost a year since I had despairingly accepted Captain Eoptis's offer. First I had been given back my rank of prince. That had been a good day watching as the other horrified princes watched my promotion taking place.

It had been an even better day when, not three months later, I was promoted to captain, totally skipping the rank of war-prince. The princes had not been happy. And then, just one month ago I had earned the rank of captain-prince.

Yes earned. I had won the greatest victory as of yet in this war. All without stepping into a fighter and playing the hero. My former ship the Protector had been destroyed, but we had won. I had won.

It had taken a month to be assigned one of the newest model ships. A Dome ship.

Because Andalites, both to feed and for general well-being, need to run through a grassy feeding ground and have some wide open spaces, our entire race has congenital claustrophobia, we attached huge domes, artificial pieces of our homeworld, to our ships.

Although this is often a hindrance to the ships during fighting, it is a major asset for warriors and is an example of our wonderful technological advances.

This mushroom-shaped craft is enormous. The main saucer-shaped section is maybe a kilometre across, with a clear dome of Ramonite covering a park over the centre.

The "stem" section has the drive engines and weapons. The two sections can be separated, but the dome can only manoeuvre lightly, enough to keep it in orbit of move it away from a battle.

We, the Andalites, had made many great advances since the war began, namely the Escafil Device, commonly known as the blue "morphing cube" or "the blue box".

It is operated by touch contact, and one person, the "giver", who already has the morphing ability, has to touch one side of it, and others, who receive the morphing ability touch the others sides of the cube, within seconds the power to morph is transferred.

This security precaution was built in so that even if the Yeerks managed to capture a cube it would be a fruitless victory. Of course of they gained a host with the power to morph…no. That would never happen. Only Andalites could morph and we would never allow ourselves to be taken as hosts. Never.

On the homeworld we even have estreens, morphing artists. They have greater control over their morphing abilities and can manipulate the changes for an artistic effect.

Though not all could use this power, some, like myself, are allergic and could not acquire the transforming power.

This did not bother me however, as far as I was concerned the morphing power was nothing but bad luck. It was Aldrea, using the stolen morphing ability, who had stopped Aloran's last sacrifice in the Battle for the Hork-Bajir.

I did not need to be able to morph to fight. I could do all the fighting I need on the bridge of my new ship the TailStrike.

I named it, as was Andalite custom. Normally a captain will name a ship after something, or someone, that is important to them.

It was my private joke, the name TailStrike, named after one of Captain Eoptis's favourite teaching styles.

It is my opinion that for this reason Sofor decided to go with Feyorn aboard the oh-so-noble StarSword. And of course where Sofor went Alloran followed, he seemed too lost to be able to do little else.

I often mourned the loss of his company; many times I had looked out at the blank whiteness of zero-space and yearned to hear him joking and laughing, though even I would not lie, that Alloran was lost to us.

I would do whatever it took to keep myself away from the fate that had befallen Alloran. Sometimes he would be right there talking with you but the next minute he would slip away into battles that I could only imagine.

That was the difference between Alloran and I. He fought in close battles where you had only a second to decide whether to aim your tail or shoot your shredder. He fought the small right-now fights, I fought the bigger picture.

For me a battle meant being on the bridge of my ship deciding whether or not to launch fighters.

Should we run or fight? Could we use the space around us to our advantage? Did we have reinforcements? Which evasive manoeuvre would be better used?

It was my task to know what the Yeerk visser would do before he did. And as of yet I had preformed my task with brilliance. I am not arrogant, I am merely pointing out the truth.

A visser is a powerful Yeerk warlord. To obtain the rank of visser, a Yeerk has to climb a large hierarchy receiving ranks like under-visser and sub-visser.

Every notch up in the ranking is accounted for either by that individual's achievements or by the demotion, or elimination, of their superiors, so usually every visser must be ruthless and brutal as well as conniving and powerful.

Sometimes I wondered as to whether we, perhaps, had followed the Yeerks into their ideas of the ranking system.

I was, as all captains are, seen as a near god. I knew exactly what was going on aboard my ship. I knew every last war-prince, prince, warrior and aristh under my command. That led me to my problem.

Yes, I, the all-knowing captain had a problem, and that problem was my F.O, War-Prince Jaham-Estalan-Forlan.

He was a smart, young prince. His fur was a pale blue rather than my own deep blue. He was of a more stocky build, with legs that were designed to be able to run over long distances, his legs had 'feathers' towards the end that actually hid the hooves from sight.

All in all his family were descended from the Andalites that ran in the plains of the Homeworld. Mine where descendents of those that lived in the forests.

Also War-Prince Jaham's eyes where ice blue as opposed to my electric green.

It was those young ice blue eyes that were looking at me now. (Do you not think that your, um – speech was a bit harsh. Especially for the younger arisths, Captain?) War-Prince Jaham asked me as we marched down the tight corridors of the TailStrike side by side.

Jaham was a good warrior. I liked him. I could see that one day he would be one the War-Council, perhaps even head of the military. But he was still young, still idealistic.

(Are you perhaps, War-Prince Jaham, scared?) I asked him without even turning my stalk eye.

Instantly he stiffened. (No! It is just that you do not instil the image that we will survive this war, Captain,) he said.

(Most likely many of the younglings will never make it to warrior. Most likely we all die. I see no point in hiding the facts, F.O, neither should you,) my tone was lecturing. I could distinctly remember Captain Eoptis giving me the same lecture when I had been F.O aboard the Rebellious. Of course we had not been at war then.

(But then…why should we fight?) War-Prince Jaham asked, not without scepticism.

I whipped around to face him. We were only a millimetre apart; I favoured him with a long, hard stare. In open thought speak, so all could hear I said, (You will fight because if you don't I will personally drag you to a Yeerk Pool ship and hand you over to them. I will watch and laugh as they drag you down the pier and infest you, the same goes for every one of you aboard this ship. Understood?)

One by one I heard agreeing mumbles from the troubled onlookers. I smiled. That little speech would insure that this crew, like the last, would do exactly as I wanted. I did not need opinions; I needed questionless obedience.

A voice nagged at the back of my mind. I ignored it.

BREEET! BRReeeeTTTTeeeeeTTTTeeeeTTT!

The alarm meant only one thing.

(Yeerks!)

Yes, I know. Kind of a nothing chapter. But I felt we needed an inbetweener. Please REVIEW!