Tseeeew! The car vaporized and the human soldiers behind it ran to find a different cover. My new host was quite the car fanatic, so I had instantly identified that the car was a classic 1966 Ford Mustang – a "machine of beauty, Ill befitting such a casual end". But I had no time to concern myself with that.

Suddenly, machine gun fire to my left, and two Hork-Bajir warriors on my left flank fell to the ground, twitching. One was quite obviously faking it – I'd seen Hork Bajir cut into their own brains, and their regenerative capabilities were legend. But many of the humans fighting us were former hosts, and they'd evidently been paying attention during briefings on Hork-Bajir anatomy. The other Hork-Bajir had had both hearts pierced by the kind of precision sharpshooting that could only have come from a professional soldier. Ex-Navy SEAL, specifically, or at least my host was of that opinion. Being a National Guardsman, he was familiar with many different branches of the human military, and his brain was sharp enough to extrapolate educated guesses based on the subtle details in our environment.

This was a very good skill to have in the middle of a war zone.

BOOM! The Honda Civic to our right exploded, and the shrapnel buried itself in several human-Controllers. But the trigger man had left himself exposed for a second too long to enjoy his handiwork, and with split-second precision, I made him pay for his curiosity with his life.

TSEEEW!

I was miserable.

Exas One-Oh-Six had come personally to verify my identity. I was half-tempted to just pretend I'd lied, claim some other Yeerk name as my own, but I was too much of a coward to do so. I wasn't afraid of dying, but I didn't think I could pull off a fake Yeerk identity properly enough to convince them that I wasn't lying a second time, which might lead to violent interrogations that would likely have broken me anyway. Besides, the deed was done - I had inadvertently blown Chris' cover, or least I assumed it was Chris, even when they said that the host body claiming to be me was an adult female. That sort of detail was irrelevant when dealing with a morph-capable being anyway. Getting myself killed wasn't going to save him from being questioned.

So I confirmed that I was Orkath, confident that my knowledge of Exas' intent to double-cross the Visser would keep me safe enough around him, as long as I toed the line. But toeing the line in this case meant using my new host as a foot soldier to fight a suddenly very open, shooting war. The humans on the other side of the encampment had apparently learned of our orders to merge and secure the Kandrona, and had laid siege for us. I had no choice but to fight alongside my brother Yeerks in order to survive.

It was tragically ironic, if I stopped to think about it. Three months ago this would have been my idea of a very good dream – a Sub-Visser with a proper warrior host, free of the need to pretend to be human, advancing the cause of my species. Now it almost felt like I wasn't really a Yeerk. The human host beneath me was belligerent, and I was controlling him against his will, but instead of reveling in my success and putting him down, I was apologetic and remorseful. It was a matter of self-preservation. I couldn't just free him and hide in the Yeerk Pool – there was no Yeerk Pool. And if I didn't defend myself against his fellow humans, they'd surely kill me.

I took comfort from the fact that, on some level, my host understood. I could see his thoughts clearly that he did. But he wanted to stay mad at me anyway, and I was "human" enough in my thinking now that I could understand why. Because it's his "game face". Like all human anger, his was merely a cover for fear, in this case fear that I'd never be able to let him go or he'd die while under my control. I didn't bother to comment on my insight, though – I doubt it would have impressed him.

When we arrived at the Supermarket that was base camp for the Yeerks there, we'd been prepared to take Chris immediately into custody. I was apprehensive to say the least, but I needn't have bothered. Chris and the Kandrona were both long gone, and no one who remained could say more than that it was loaded onto a truck headed south. Exas took command of the remaining Yeerk forces and ordered them to pull back into a tight perimeter around the supermarket, and then pulled me into the upstairs management office.

"That body suits you, Orkath," he commented, leaning over some kind of heating plate and preparing hot water for a drink. The notion seemed absurd to me, as though he'd actually just brought us up for tea and crumpets. "No more whimpering gay child, yes?"

I shrugged. "A body's a body, not much difference," I replied noncommittally.

Exas twisted Tom's face into a sneer. "Spoken like a true Yeerk," he declared with an approving nod, as though I'd passed some kind of a test. He leaned in closer and whispered, "Things are going to start happening quickly now. When the Visser gets here and sees that there's no Kandrona, he's going to go into one of his tantrums, the kind that make him susceptible to a well-timed suggestion."

"If one can survive to make it," I remarked tersely.

Exas laughed. "I've made a career of knowing how to survive the Visser's moods. You just follow my lead and everything will go smoothly." After a moment's hesitation, he leaned in close to my face. "You DO want things to go smoothly, don't you, brother?"

I kept his gaze, fully aware that to do otherwise would be to die right here. "Absolutely."

"Good," Exas replied, patting me on the shoulder. He pulled his eyes away from mine and looked down at the supermarket floor below, and the surreal scene of Hork-Bajir huddled with survival blankets and eating cans of SPAM, which apparently tasted enough like tree bark to satisfy them for a time. "In a way," he mused, "the theft of the Kandrona is perfect. It's an excuse to land the Pool ship, which is essential to my plan."

"LAND the pool ship?" I repeated, shocked at the notion. "I don't think any prior campaign has ever done that."

"Things have never been this desperate," Exas mock-whined, placing an edge of sarcasm in Tom's voice. "Remember that report regarding the Andalite fleet? You're going to get it over our Z-Space transponder in a few minutes, and hand it to me during my conversation with the Visser." The unmistakable sound of the approaching Blade Ship cut off his last few words. "Speaking of." He gestured towards the manager's desk, where a Z-Space Transponder had already been set up. "Go sit over there, get ready. I'll give you a glance when it's time for you to fake getting the report. Make sure you pretend to jot it down and hand it to me – if you deliver the report verbally, the Visser will go into one of his 'shoot the messenger' tantrums."

I went to the station he pointed at and before long, Visser One arrived in his human morph, rapidly demorphing to Andalite as he berated Exas for the loss of the Kandrona. Watching Tom work with the Visser, I couldn't help but admire the cunning and tenacity that the human-Controller showed. Every subtle word, every shift of body language, seemed designed with it's effect on the Visser in mind. How much of that skill, I wondered, had been inherited from his human host? Was Tom possibly as tactically gifted as his younger brother apparently was?

I wasn't able to ponder it long, because Tom gave me the nod and I quickly started faking a conversation into the Z-Space transponder. As I did so, I couldn't help wondering to myself – why did Tom want the Pool ship on the ground? And where was Chris in all this? Did he still know I was alive? Was he searching for me? Did he even miss me, or was he glad that I was gone?

«Man, stop pining over whoever you're in love with and concentrate before you get us killed,» my new host complained. Embarassingly, I had forgotten he was there.

«Umm, right. Sorry,» I murmured, returning to the task of writing fake notes. There would be time to worry about Chris later – I hoped. But now I had another question to ponder. Was my new host right? Was I actually in love with a human?