"Everyone keep your heads down," Cherry told us. "We have a sniper set up somewhere on the upper floors of the mall. And as you now know, he is a crack shot."

"You're telling me!" Amanda said. "I almost lost the top of my head because of him!"

I took a peek above the hood of the car and looked back at the community center, trying to find the place where the sniper who had taken a shot at Amanda was camping out. I saw a lot of windows, as well as the massive glass doors, but nothing else to indicate that a sniper was out there, searching for the three of us. I quickly ducked back behind the car, hoping that the engine block and wheel would be enough to stop any bullet from the sniper from reaching me. Fuck that, I thought. Cherry, Amanda, and I must have made for a strange sight: three women armed with submachine guns and an assault rifle all cowering behind a single abandoned car. But that was why a sniper was just so effective in this kind of fighting: the sniper was suppressing us by his mere presence, preventing us from moving away from the ruins of the community center because none of us wanted a bullet between our shoulders or through our heads. All that time that we could have spent getting back to friendly lines was now being wasted while hiding from the sniper.

Cherry took a peek from her hiding spot behind the trunk and then ducked back down before the sniper could take a shot at her. "We need to get out of here, and fast," she said. Cherry was already pale when I first saw her, but now she was almost as white as a sheet thanks to her two wounds. She was right; she needed medical attention and fast. But she wasn't going to get it as long as we were stuck behind this car while a sniper was waiting to shoot us. "Anyone have any ideas?" she asked.

"Don't look at me!" Amanda said. "I'm still trying to get over the fact that I almost got shot! Mallek never taught me how to deal with this! She didn't want to be reminded of all the fighting that she had to do before she was reassigned to Earth. Oh god, Mallek! I could have seen her again, feel her in my mind again! Maybe I should have just let myself get shot," Amanda mumbled repeatedly, and then she made to stand up from behind the car before Cherry hauled her back down rougher than the last time. And then to my surprise, Cherry slapped Amanda with such force that even I felt it from a distance.

"Snap out of it, Amanda!" Cherry shouted. "You need to snap out of this, Barzaglio! Now is not the time for you to go crazy on us!"

"What was that for!?" Amanda shouted back.

"You are not going to get yourself shot out there, Amanda," Cherry hissed as she grabbed Amanda by the latter's plate carrier. "I did not get myself injured twice and save you from being enslaved by the Empire once again just so you can fulfill your suicidal death wish to be reunited with your Yeerk in the afterlife! This is not what Mallek would have wanted, Amanda!"

"How dare you speak her name!" Amanda said as she struggled to free herself, but Cherry had her pinned against the car.

"Yes! Yes, I dare!" Cherry shot back. "I was a Yeerk! I used to be a Yeerk before I was forced to morph into this human body and become a nothlit! Mallek and I may not have come from the same Pool, but I know that she wouldn't want you to die just for her. My body may be young now but when I was a Yeerk, I was already old! I was already a mature symbiote before the Yeerk Empire even existed. I've known Yeerk culture before it was eroded by Imperial propaganda and policies and twisted to suit the Council's needs. We Yeerks have always cared for our hosts because we needed them just as much as they needed us, and despite the constant Imperial brainwashing against it, we Yeerks have always sympathized with our hosts! Why do you think the Peace Movement was a thing? A lot of Yeerks have always believed in the same things the Peace Movement does, but they have never felt brave enough to express it until the brave few finally stood up. Irrab Seven-Three-Zero, Mossutt Nine-Six-One-Seven, Tarash Five-One-Four, Aftran Nine-Four-Two, Gebran Two-Four-Seven-Seven Prime. Without these pioneers, all four of us would not be here right now."

"And that's supposed to make me grateful to them?" Amanda spat back. "And what does the Peace Movement have to do with anything? Mallek was never a part of it! I should know; I was her host for four years before that dapsen Berenson vented her into space!"

"Mallek may not have been a member of the Peace Movement overtly, but I know she believed in the same things we do," Cherry continued. "She may not have realized it, or she might have tried to see it in such a way that was still in line with Imperial propaganda, but Mallek obviously cares about you. You said it yourself, you were her host for four Earth years. Even for voluntary hosts, that's an awfully long time for a Yeerk to stay with one particular host. Mallek must have turned down transfers to other hosts for you to have had her that long. That's not even host sympathy anymore, Amanda; that's literally host affection we're talking about now! Mallek may have never told you anything for fear of being discovered by the Empire, but everything that she's ever done to you and for you tells me that Mallek really cared for you. And because Mallek cares for you, I know that she wouldn't want you to waste your life just so you could join her in the afterlife!"

"Really? You really believe that Mallek would tell me that?" Amanda asked, now with all hostility gone from her voice.

"Yes," Cherry nodded as she finally let go of Amanda's plate carrier. "Yes, I do."

"But what about the other Yeerk?" Amanda asked. "Jennifer said that she and you were going to help me get a new Yeerk once all this is over. What do you think Mallek would say about that?"

"She would have wanted you to get to know your new Yeerk just as well as you did Mallek," Cherry replied. "It's just like relationships between humans. You have to get to know new people, or in your case a new Yeerk, in order to grow as a person. I know that you were close to Mallek, but you can't keep hanging on to her forever! I don't think that's a good thing to do, and I'm sure Mallek wouldn't want you to just keep holding on to her memory without doing anything else about it!"

"How sure are you about that?"

"Girls," I called out, but Amanda and Cherry were too busy talking to each other. "Girls. Girls!" I shouted, and that finally got their attention. "I really hate to break up your little heart-to-heart talk," I said even as the two of them glared at me angrily for even daring to interrupt their conversation, "but in case you two have forgotten, we're still stuck behind a car and pinned down by a sniper with no way to get away from here and make it to the National Guard lines!"

"Taraka, you're right," Cherry finally said. "Do you have any ideas, Jennifer? Yemra?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," I replied. "Cherry, how many snipers did you say you have over there?"

"Just the one," Cherry replied.

"Okay, so there's three of us, and just one of him," I said. "So why are we the ones hiding from him? He should be the one hiding from us!"

"But remember, he's a sniper," Cherry reminded me. "He almost killed Amanda with just one shot!"

"Yeah, he almost got me!" Amanda added.

"I know that," I sighed. "My point is that he only has one gun. We have three. Are you guys familiar with the concept of suppressing fire?" The blank stares from both women were enough to give me the answers I dreaded. I expected it and yet I was still disappointed. Cherry was a nothlit, a Yeerk who morphed into a human and stayed in that form way beyond the two-hour limit, and therefore would not be very familiar with human battlefield tactics (unless she had infested a human soldier before, but that didn't seem to be the case). And Amanda was just a civilian with a gun. The Nothlit State had recruited her for the sole purpose of making up the numbers; she was only enticed to fight for them because they told her that she would be infested with a Yeerk once again as a reward for her services.

"All right, ladies, listen up," I said, vaguely aware that I was now using my "team captain voice," the tone I used when addressing my local soccer team. "Like I said, the sniper has just one gun to our three. If we point our guns in the general direction of the sniper and open fire, he'll be forced to take cover, and then we'll have our chance to escape!"

"But how is that going to kill the sniper if we don't even know where he is?" Amanda asked me.

"Killing the sniper is not the point of suppressing fire," I replied. "All we really need to do is to send enough lead his way so he doesn't have a chance to take a shot at us while we make a break for better cover!"

"I don't know," Cherry muttered. "That doesn't sound like much of a plan at all!"

"Do any of you have any better ideas?" I asked. "Didn't think so," I muttered. I then looked down at the Uzi in my hand and realized that I didn't have any spare clips for it. Cherry had just handed me the weapon and I didn't bother checking the other guard for extra mags. Oh, well. If my plan didn't work out then I wouldn't have to worry about my ammo situation anyway. "Charegh, look at me and do as I do," I told the nothlit. I lifted the Uzi up to my right shoulder, looked down the iron sights, and checked that the fire selector was set to full auto. "On my signal, just point your gun at the building and open fire," I said, and then I stood up from behind the car and pulled the trigger, unleashing a hail of hot lead on the nothlits cowering inside the community center and trying to stay out of sight of the Andalites above. At the other end of the car, Cherry did the same with her MP5. "Go, Amanda! Now!" I shouted, and Amanda stood up and dashed for the abandoned car behind the one we had been using for cover.

I fired the Uzi in the general direction of the community center. I didn't know where the sniper or any of the other nothlits that I knew to be inside the building was, but I didn't care. I fired blindly, and I fired wildly, which was the whole point of suppressing fire. The Uzi, being on full auto, blazed through the one and only clip that I had for it in a matter of seconds, and the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber after just two seconds of me pulling the trigger. "Shit!" I shouted, and I threw away the now-useless gun. Cherry also went through the ammo currently in her MP5 at a brisk pace, but at least she still had some spare magazines on her. She inserted a fresh magazine into her MP5 and switched to burst fire before popping out of cover once again and firing in the general direction of the sniper. "Your turn, Jennifer! Go!" she shouted. I didn't need any more encouragement, and I dashed out of the cover of the first car towards the same car where Amanda was now hiding. I even jumped and slid across the hood of the car before I landed feet-first on the ground. I ducked down as low as I could behind the engine block once Cherry's gun went quiet once again. "Your turn to shoot," I told Amanda.

"Wait! What about you!?" Amanda asked me. "Where's your gun?"

"I'm out!" I shouted back. "I'm out of bullets," I clarified when Amanda looked like she didn't understand a thing I was saying once again.

"What am I gonna do now?" Amanda asked again.

"Get your gun, put it on your shoulder, line up the post with the notch, and pull the trigger," I said slowly. It was just like being back at the range again, instructing first-time shooters how to use their guns. Amanda was even looking at her AR like it was her first time using it. "Are you serious?" I asked exasperatedly. "What the fuck happened to you, Barzaglio? Did you suddenly forget how to use this thing? How were you able to survive for this long!?"

"The job description didn't say anything about turning on the nothlits and taking part in a jailbreak!" Amanda said, or more accurately, pleaded.

"Barzaglio! What's the problem?" Cherry shouted from the car in front of us.

"I don't know! I don't know if I can do what Jennifer is telling me to do!" Amanda shouted back.

"Oh, taraka!" I said. Apparently, that word means something like "damn" or "fuck" in Galard, and Yemra has said that word so many times that I've picked it up myself. I guess it is true what they say about learning new languages: it's the greetings and swear words you learn first. "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself! Give me your AR, Amanda! Give me your gun!"

"What!?"

"Give. Me. Your. Gun!" I shouted.

"Okay! Here! Take it!" Amanda said as she practically threw her gun at me. I snatched it out of the air, and I began examining it even as I turned half of my attention to Yemra. ((Seriously, how the fuck did Amanda survive for this long?)) I asked her. ((Without me and Cherry here, I think she'd probably be dead already!))

((There's no need to insult one of your saviors like that, Jennifer,)) Yemra scolded me. ((Without Amanda, you know you and Charegh wouldn't have made it this far.))

((Yeah, I know,)) I muttered. ((But, if we're being truthful, Cherry did most of the work.)) I checked the chamber of the AR to see if there was a round inside, which there was. I then ejected the magazine to check if it was full, which looked to be the case as well. I put the magazine back into the well and tried to switch the gun to full auto, but there was nothing except the safety on and off switch. Shit. This must be a civilian version made to comply with some sort of state law. At least whoever had owned this AR before the nothlits gave it to Amanda had modified it by adding a bump stock, which was enough to give this semi-auto rifle a firing rate similar to a full-auto-capable AR. That would have to be good enough for what I was about to do.

((...and if it hadn't been for Charegh talking to her for Kandrona knows how long, Amanda wouldn't even have joined our little jailbreak… Jennifer Yelena Carson!)) Yemra shouted. ((Are you even listening to me?))

((What did we say about using the Y word again?)) I retorted immediately.

((It was the only way to get your attention short of taking full control without your permission,)) Yemra replied. ((Now, what was it that I was telling you before I noticed that you weren't listening to me?))

((No wonder Amanda was so attached to Mallek,)) I said almost absentmindedly. ((That woman probably wouldn't even know how to find her butt with both of her hands without someone to guide her. Sadly, I think she's the kind of person who needs someone else to do the thinking for her.))

((That was nowhere near anything that I told you while you were inspecting your weapon!)) Yemra moaned. ((Also, that is very harsh of you to Amanda! It is true, but it's also harsh on her. And that could be you if you lose me, I just know it.))

((At least I'll only lose my sanity and not my abilities,)) I said back. ((I may go crazy at even just the mere thought of losing you, but at least I'll still be able to find my butt with both hands without your guidance. Or anyone else's, for that matter. I really don't think that I can say the same for Amanda!))

((Enough about us or Amanda for the moment though,)) Yems said. ((Aren't you forgetting something?))

((Say what now? Oh, yeah! Of course! I am stupid.)) I then looked over to Amanda and said, "Look at me. Watch what I'm about to do." I barely saw her nod her head hesitantly before I shouldered the AR, stood up from behind my cover and pulled the trigger. Even when I was expecting it, the rate of fire of this AR with the bump stock still shocked me. In fact, I was so surprised that Yemra had to take control of my mouth, lungs, and vocal chords to call out to Cherry. "Charegh!" Yems shouted, using Cherry's original Yeerk name. "Let's go!"

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Cherry dashed away from the car that she had been hiding behind. She moved across the street before finally sliding behind the cover of a concrete barrier. Cherry turned to look at us and asked, "What took you so long?"

"I had to teach Amanda how to shoot a gun once again!" I shouted back. This elicited a very indignant "What the hell?" from the woman herself.

"You were freezing up on me back there, Amanda!" I told her. "Charegh was telling you to shoot, and I was telling you to shoot, and you were just sitting there shaking your head not knowing what to do!"

"I don't know what happened," Amanda shook her head. "All of a sudden, everything sounded like it was happening underwater. I couldn't hear a thing you were saying! It was like I was putting my head back down into the Yeerk Pool once again. And my arms and hands had suddenly gone weak, like I knew what I was supposed to do but they wouldn't follow my orders!"

"Well, never mind that," I said. "Can you shoot now?"

"Yes," Amanda nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"I hope you're right, because if you're not ready then that could be lights out for me!" I braced myself for the next short run to yet another abandoned car, and then I shouted, "Now!"

It looked like Amanda had indeed regained control of herself because she was able to repeat everything that I just did with regards to suppressing the nothlit sniper in the community center, but I didn't really have the time to spare to congratulate her. Instead, I bolted away from the cover of the abandoned car and rushed for another one further down the parking lot. But then I saw that I was approaching a street corner, so instead of hiding behind yet another car, I dashed for the corner of the street instead. "Amanda, your turn!" Charegh shouted as she put another magazine into her MP5.

"Here I go!" Amanda shouted to nobody in particular as she bolted towards the same street corner where I was now hiding. I reached out and grabbed her in order to pull her back into cover just a little bit quicker than if Amanda had tried to do it herself. She pressed herself against the wall while I peeked out from behind cover to call out to Cherry. "Come on! Let's go!" I shouted even as I grabbed the AR from Amanda once again and put it to my shoulder.

"Aargh!" Cherry screamed as she ran out of the cover of the concrete barrier at the same time that I pulled the trigger to suppress the sniper once again. Cherry didn't stop screaming until she had made it to our corner. However, just as she did that, once again I heard something that sounded like the crack of a whip, and Cherry stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Cherry!" Amanda cried out, and before I could stop her, she ran towards Cherry and tried to drag her away from view of the community center. I was stuck between continuing to suppress the sniper or helping Amanda drag Cherry back into cover, and for once, Yemra didn't make my choice for me. Eventually I decided to step out from behind my cover, and I exhausted the AR's ammunition in keeping the sniper from taking a third pot shot at our group. Once the magazine ran dry, I turned back and helped Amanda drag Cherry behind a building.

"Cherry, are you okay?" Amanda asked. "Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?"

"I don't know. Am I?" Cherry asked back. Amanda and I examined Cherry's body for any signs of blood or injury but, thankfully, we didn't find any. Not anything that had been very recently inflicted on her, of course. She still had those wounds on her thigh and hip sustained from our initial escape through the Yeerk pool tunnels.

"I thought you were a goner!" I admitted once we had made sure that Cherry was none the worse for wear. "When that sniper took his shot and you fell down, I was already thinking the worst!"

"I must have tripped on something," Cherry muttered. "That's why I fell down."

"You must actually be a cat nothlit and not a Yeerk one," I continued. "I think that's already two out of your nine lives you've used up!"

"If that's the case then I wouldn't want to use up the rest of my lives right here and right now!" Cherry said through gritted teeth. She then reached into her backpack and took out a roll of white bandages. "I'm going to need your help for this," she told me and Amanda. "I can't do this by my own! Not quickly, anyway." She unrolled the bandages, tore off a few strips, and folded those into a compress. She applied one to the wound on her thigh and another to the wound on her hip, just above the waistline of her cargo pants. "Press on it to stop the bleeding," she instructed Amanda, and Cherry had to physically put Amanda's hands on the bandage on her hip. I also held the other bandage in place on the side of Cherry's left thigh while she used the rest of her bandages to support and compress the wound and its surrounding area. Once she was finished with herself, Cherry turned to the rest of us and asked, "Are any of you hurt too?"

"I don't think so," I replied hesitantly, and then I turned my thoughts inward to Yemra and asked her, ((Am I hurt?)) It was possible that I could have been injured during the skirmish with the sniper and that I was not feeling it yet because of the adrenaline pumping through my body. Yemra could potentially feel an injury through the flood of adrenaline and painkillers in my blood, but if she could feel something, she wasn't saying anything about it to me. ((Trust me, Jen, you're just fine,)) she assured me.

((You better be sure about this one, Yems,)) I muttered. ((I don't want to bleed out and die just a short distance away from safety.))

((If I feel that you've been hurt in any way, I will tell you immediately,)) my Yeerk reassured me. On one hand, I was reasonably confident that Yemra would indeed tell me if I was injured, but on the other hand, I was a bit doubtful that she would be able to feel anything out of the ordinary. She had had more than a decade's worth of experience inside my body, so some things that she might have noticed when she first infested me might now be getting past her.

Meanwhile, while I was trying to convince Yemra to give my body another look for an injury that I might not be able to feel, Cherry had finished tying and securing her bandages to her body. "Are you sure you're fine, Amanda?" she asked the former Controller one more time.

"I think I'm fine," Amanda shook her head. "But I'm still not over the fact that I almost died out there!"

Amanda and I helped Cherry get back on her feet, and she lifted her left leg and turned her body a few times to test the tightness of her bandages. "That will have to do," she muttered, and then she picked up her MP5 and checked if there was a round in the chamber. "We don't have a lot of time to waste," she then said to me and Amanda. "If we get moving now, we can still make it to Pike Street before nightfall. I'm sure that Eldril and Immib will send out patrols to look for us after Wassoub failed to stop any of us from getting away. I have to say, Jennifer, that that 'suppressing fire' tactic of yours worked wonderfully," Cherry told me. "If it wasn't for you, we all would probably still be stuck in the parking lot of the community center."

"Oh, it's nothing," I muttered as I felt my cheeks flush in slight embarrassment. "I've just watched a lot of war movies with my dad." I felt a lump form in my throat as I thought about the last time that Dad and I had watched a film together. It was a few years ago, and Dad and I went to see Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt because we both thought that it was an interesting movie based on the trailers. We weren't disappointed by what we saw, but judging by what other people on the Internet said, Dad and I were only a handful who didn't feel let down by the movie's plot and production.

I took a deep breath to stop myself from crying. Recalling the last time that I had watched a movie with my dad had triggered a new thought in my mind, the thought that there was a possibility that I wouldn't be able to see another movie with him ever again, or maybe even see my own father again. Yemra immediately sensed the fragility of my mental state and quickly wrapped me in a mental hug. ((Don't you dare even think about it, Jennifer,)) she told me softly but sternly. ((You will be able to see your father again, and you will also be able to see another movie with him and bond with him again!))

"Jen, are you all right?" Cherry asked me. "For a second there, I thought you were about to cry."

I took another deep breath to calm myself down and allow myself to enjoy and sink into the warmth and security of Yemra's mental embrace, and then I finally opened my mouth to speak. "It's nothing, guys," I said. "I just remembered the last time I saw a movie with my dad and it just made me emotional." I then realized that I was still carrying Amanda's AR rifle so I tried to hand it over to her. "I think this is yours," I said.

"Actually, I was thinking that you could hold on to it," Amanda admitted. "You saw what happened to me back there! I froze up! I couldn't help any of you when you needed me the most! I can't trust myself to not freeze up again, so I guess you can keep it. The gun, I mean." To further prove her point, Amanda took out the three remaining spare magazines from her plate carrier and handed them to me. "Besides, I think you're much more qualified to handle that thing than I am," she added.

I hesitantly accepted the spare mags from Amanda. "But how are you going to defend yourself?" I asked her. "You heard what Cherry said. The nothlits are going to send patrols after us. What are you going to use when one of those patrols runs into us?"

"Don't worry about that, Jennifer," Cherry replied. "I think I have the solution for that." She reached for the holster on her right thigh and pulled out her sidearm, a SIG Sauer P226. "Take it, Amanda," Cherry told the former Controller as she offered the SIG grip first. "Trust me, you're going to need it. Especially if Immib and his goons find us."

Just like me, Amanda hesitated before she took the gun from Cherry's hands. "I'm still not really sure about this," she muttered.

"You may not have a choice in the matter!" Cherry insisted. "You saw how heavily armed these nothlits are! If they catch up to us, all three of us will need to pull our own weight with regards to defending ourselves. None of us can afford to freeze up if we get into another fight. Can I count on the two of you to be able to fight with me if Immib finds us?"

((Hey, what about me? I'm right here, you know!)) Yemra quipped. But, just as I was about to repeat this to Cherry, Yems held back my tongue. ((This is neither the time nor the place for that,)) my Yeerk told me sternly.

"Let's go!" Cherry said. "We've still a long way to go before we get out of Nothlit State territory."