MARCO

I shot out of the blackness, Ax right behind me. We were struck by the coldness almost instantly. It was a cold that seemed to seep through your bones, which would just utterly encompass you and slowly freeze you to death.

"Ax? You there?"

"Marco, I believe that the human term 'there' refers to a place in which we are not, rather than-"

I cut him off. "Is it just me, or is it totally freezing out here? "

"I, too, feel the coldness of this air. "

"Where are we, Z-Space? "

Ax actually laughed. "Of course not. Z-Space is white and empty, and we wouldn't be able to feel cold there. This is realspace somewhere. "

"The question is, where? " It was a query that neither of us could answer. I mean, how was I supposed to figure out where I was if I had been in a Dumpster a minute before? "I wonder where Tobias and Rachel ended up after flying into the black hole. "

"Actually, the creation you referred to as a 'black hole' is more commonly known as a white hole. A black hole is an area with such a strong gravitational pull that no matter or energy can escape from, whereas a white hole is a hypothetical region of space from which…"

I tuned out. I was slowly freezing to death, and I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life listening to Ax's unintelligible speeches. Then I saw something that jolted me out of my boredom.

"Look, Ax, a ship! "

I tried to turn, but my wings were frozen stiff. I gave up on moving and shouted in the loudest thought-speech that I could muster, "HELP! I'M TRAPPED AND DYING SO PLEASE HELP!"

To my utter relief, the ship turned.

Now that I could see it better, I noticed that it didn't look much like a ship; it was more like a big asteroid. But it was purple and moving towards us and I didn't really care about how it looked so long that it would save me and Ax and I wouldn't die.

Then the asteroid sent out some weird-looking bubble that enclosed Ax and me as it pulled us steadily into the ship.

When we finally landed inside, I saw two scowling aliens staring down at me. They poked and prodded Ax, and then me.

"Are they Jeedai?" a gruff voice asked. With the warmth that I now felt, I was able to slightly turn my neck and see another, more scarred alien. This one had one clawed foot and was accompanied by an alien who looked almost savvy and had a strange-looking eye, and another alien that was, well… indescribable.

She was a little bit on the small side and looked nothing like the others. Brightly colored blue, pink, and yellow feathers encompassed her body, and she had a certain avian look to her. Her features were sharp and knowing, and the creature was quite obviously one of a kind.

Tearing my eyes away from her was hard, but I was finally able to do so. "We're not, uh, Jeedai, whatever they are. We're Ani-" I bit my tongue. There was no telling how far away the Yeerks were from this place. I couldn't afford to reveal myself. I resorted to the old trick. "I'm Captain Picard of the Federation ship Enterprise, and this is Data. Unfortunately, we must return to our original bodies now. "

"A Jeedai trick, Warmaster," the guy with the weird eye growled. "We cannot allow this Captain to return to his original shape."

"And why not?" countered the feathered alien. "These creatures may or may not be lying, but either way they are our captives. Nom Anor is trying to dissuade you from your quest to collect more information about the Jedi in order to murder more for our great god Yun Yuuzhan."

"Vergere is right," the warmaster decided. "Captain Picard, you and Data may resume your former shapes."

"You wait, " I told Ax in private thought-speech. "I'll demorph first. Watch their reactions and decide whether or not to haul butt. "

"Yes, Marco. "

I demorphed, but to my surprise, rather than being repulsed by the morphing, they were fascinated.

"Is that painful?" The warmaster demanded as he watched Ax's demorphing with interest.

"Nope, well, only if you're watching Rachel go elephant and you see her trunk come bursting out of her otherwise totally hot face." I grimaced. "Now that's painful."

Vergere watched me with narrowed eyes. "The two should be imprisoned now, Warmaster."

The warmaster looked almost regretful to see us go. "Of course." He addressed the two guards who had first found us. "Take them to the yammosk!" He suddenly smiled a hideous grin. "It will find out who our captives really are."

I shivered. Whatever this yammosk was, it sure didn't sound like an amusement park ride…

A/N: Whew! That was a long one! I've been working on it for an hour and a half already! Anyway, thanx to all those who reviewed! Thank you Brutal2003 for your input on black and white holes! I'm sorry if I didn't explain everything about Animorphs and Star Wars, but I figured that if you bothered to read this, you probably have a slight clue about what's going on!

Disclaimer: I think I 4got to put a disclaimer on Chapter 3, so this one counts 4 that one and all future chapters: To my utter sorrow and despair, I do not own either series. K. A. Applegate owns Animorphs, as does anyone she's sold rights to. Star Wars is owned by Lucasbooks.