Chapter Three

My name is Marco.

Marco Mingarelli is my full name, something I haven't usually had the ability to say. But the battle for Earth has long been over, and keeping our identities secret is no longer a priority.

It all started about seven years ago, back when I was a normal junior-high school student. Shortly after, my friends and I found ourselves in the middle of an inter-stellar war.

Elfangor was his name, who we then thought was the lone survivor of the space battle that had recently been carried out over the planet. Elfangor trusted us with his peoples' greatest weapon, the Escafil Device, the blue cube that gave us the power to morph into any animal we can touch.

We had been fighting the Yeerks for years, searching for an end to come. And finally, it came, as my friends and I managed to seize control of the Yeerk Pool Ship.

But that was no easy thing to do, let me tell you. We were already in small numbers, living in a refugee camp deep in the mountains. We thought we were toast, until we found help in an unexpected place.

Taxxons. Huge, cannibalistic worms. Fifteen feet long. Let me tell you, the one good thing about being in this far corner of the universe was that I wouldn't be seeing any of them any time soon.

Anyway, the Taxxons helped us, by creating a diversion. In the meantime, another unexpected ally-Temrash 223, aka the Yeerk inside Jake's brother Tom's head-had successfully gotten control of the Blade Ship.

Long story short: Temrash wasn't actually an ally, and some Yeerks ended up escaping into z-space with a Blade Ship full of morphing Yeerks. But Temrash wasn't one of them. He was killed in the final battle, along with several thousand Yeerks, and my comrade, Rachel.

Well, going back to one of those last points. The thing about being in this far corner of the universe....

I looked around at my surroundings again. I was looking at the smoking ruins of what was once the magnificent-looking ship known as the Rachel. She was a lot of things now, but magnificent wasn't one of'em. A big freakin' hole was now outlined through the hull, where we had made contact with the Blade Ship. And, within that hole, I could see what was left of the inside, the remnants of whatever we had brought with us on this journey.

"Can you salvage anything?" I asked Menderash skeptically.

He was a few feet away, examined what looked like some sort of way-too big computer. "I do not know," he answered me. "The ship is burning rapidly. It would not be safe to retrieve anything."

"So, no more Play Station?" I asked, in mock sincerity.

Menderash didn't get it, however. "I was not referring to your games, Marco. There is more important stuff on board. Like the star chart. Or our weapons."

"Relax, relax," I said. "It was just a joke."

Just then, I heard a rustling in the bushes. Menderash and I both forgot our conversation, looking immediately into the woods.

"Santorelli?" I asked. "Is that you."

No answer.

I looked at Menderash. "I'll go take a look," I told him, as I grabbed a hand-held Dracon Beam that had been taken out of the ship earlier.

I slowly tip toed over to the sound, snapping small patches of what seemed like the biological glass that the trees were made of.

"Hello," I asked. "Who's out there?"

Again, no answer. Just some more rustling.

"That better be you, Jake," I said. "I don't think I could handle Jeanne doing something this bizarre."

Now, definite breathing. And now I was certain: either Jake had suddenly lost what was left of his mind, or I had something else before me.

And then....

"WEEE! WEEE! WEEE!"

It was some sort of pig-like animal. Almost ovaloid, with a diametre of what must have been four feet. It was bright blue, which was a shocking sight in this violet wonderland. I think it had six dumbly clawed legs, but I couldn't say. To tell you the truth, I was looking at those nasty tusks. The thing had a face that even a mother would hate, jeez, that thing was ugly. Mean looking yellow eyes, a pig-like snout, and a mouth filled with nasty, razor edged teeth. Two of which were tusks.

Pointed tusks. Very pointed.

Before he could move another nanometre, I was going to make sure that those tusks wouldn't make it anywhere near my butt. I high-tailed it outta there!

"WEEE! WEEE! WEEE!"

The beast had it in for me, that was for sure. From the corner of my eye, I could see him charging straight for me, with what had to have been smoke billowing from his grotesque nostrils.

I soon realized that I could not outrun him, so I stopped, turned around, and aimed the Dracon Beam at the beast.

TSEWW!

"WEEE!" the beast grunted, and stopped running immediately. With one final sigh, it let out one final groan, and collapsed on the ground, three feet away.

"What have you been up to, Marco?"

I spun around, and saw Jeanne. She was standing right behind me the whole time, with that beautiful smile of hers.

"How long were you there?" I asked her. "Were you just going to stand there and wait while I become a Marco-kebab?"

"No, she wasn't. I told her to do that."

I looked around again, and saw Jake standing there behind me. He was grinning, and looking at the boiling remains of the beast that had tried to kill me.

I mean, shouldn't they be concerned? I was nearly killed!

Obviously Jake was not. I assumed Jeanne was, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. "So, want to come back to the ship?" Jake asked me, trying to hide a grin.

"Sure," I said. "I think that's where my butt is safest."

"Don't bet on it," Jeanne told me, as we set off.

With that, the three of us went through the forest, headed back to the Rachel.

"What is with these weird looking trees?" Jake asked curiously.

"Don't know, Jake," Jeanne told him. "The only thing I can say for certain is that it probably doesn't rain very much around here. If it did, these trees would be too shattered to actually be considered trees at all."

"Weird place," I agreed. "I hope we realize what we've gotten ourselves into."

"Remember," Jake said. "The Yeerks could be anywhere. Anything, for that matter. We need to have our guard up."

"Agreed, fearless leader," I said.

It wasn't long before we had arrived at camp. Santorelli had been helping Menderash retrieve some mapping equipment from within the ship.

"Any idea where we are, Menderash?" Jake asked.

"Not at the moment," the Andalite reported. "But I hope to find some useful data in these papers here. I assume we are somewhere near Quadrant M, but I need to perform some more calculations before I know for certain."

"Okay," Jake said. "Good work."

And then, we heard another voice speaking to us.

Hello, Jake. Hello, Marco. Glad to see you guys made it back okay.

I looked up, scanning the skies. And there I saw the red-tailed hawk, soaring over our heads.

Jake waved up at him, as did I. "Hey, Tobias. Glad to see you're all right, too. What do you see up there?"

No, not much of anything, he admitted. There's a spectacular looking waterfall due south of here, but everything else is forest. No signs of Yeerks, no signs of a local intelligent species, nothing.

"Well, the Yeerks landed fairly far off," Menderash said. "They could be anywhere."

"Yes," Jake said solemnly. "But we're going to find them."