"Give me the android, Andalite," he repeated, raising his pistol and centering it on my already damaged forehead. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us to five feet.

  I said.

  I lifted my trunk, hoisting Lourdes high over my head. I hoped this nonviolent Chee warrior would forgive me for using her as a bludgeon.

  "Give it to me and perhaps Visser Three will show you mercy!" he snapped. "You have no hope of escape," the cop continued, inching closer. "Your friends are dead and you're next."

  I didn't want to die.

  But better to die like a warrior.

  A stark black-and-white blur caught the corner of my eye.

  What?

  Suddenly, a tiny, furry, helpless-looking creature about the size of a house cat came waddling in.

  Harmless-looking, unless you knew what you were looking at. Unless you knew what that black-and-white striped tail meant.

  The skunk - Ax, I assumed - darted between my huge feet, turned, aimed its butt at the Controller, and fired without warning.

  The air filled with the thick, cloying stench of fresh, potent skunk.

  You think you know what skunks smell like because you've smelled dead ones on the highway? You know nothing about the sheer, awesome power of that chemical weapon disguised as a cute fuzzy kitty.

  "AAARGH!" the cop shrieked, clapping both hands over his eyes and falling back a step.

  I almost fell with him. Ax hadn't hit me, but even a near miss is awful.

  Ax commanded, scampering out of reach.

  WHUMPF!

  C-r-r-r-r-UNCH!

  Flump!

  My trunk, weighted with the android, slammed down on the Controller, buckling his knees and smashing him through the rotted floor to the crawl space below.

  He twitched once and lay still. He was still breathing. I wasn't sure if I was glad about that.

  Tobias swept in through the shattered front window and pulled up sharply.
  Cassie's mother's with them and they have dart guns! We've got to get out of here!>

  I said, laying Lourdes on a hunk of stable flooring and dipping my trunk down into the crawl space.

  Ax said.

  I said stubbornly, fishing around in the darkness until I located one of Marco's hairy gorilla legs. I curled my trunk around it and hauled him up and out of the crawl space.

  He hung upside down from my trunk, his arms swinging slowly, his body battered and matted with blood and dirt.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  he said weakly.

  I shouted, so startled that I almost dropped him.

  he mumbled.

  The ground around us trembled. Chunks of plaster rained down from the ceiling and hairline fractures webbed what was left of the walls.

  Tobias said, skimming back through the broken front window.

  Ax warned as he waddled toward the front door.

  I swung Marco up over my head and dropped him on my broad, leathery back.

  I asked.

  he retorted, grabbing handfuls of the thin, wiry hair on my head and gripping me with his knees.

  Again I reached into the crawl space and curled my trunk around Cassie's limp wolf body.

  It was still warm. Her heart was beating beneath her fur.

  I went weak with relief.

  I said. I held her up, my knees trembling, until Marco pulled her into his lap.

  I reached back down for Lourdes. I could hardly see. One of my eyes was blinded by blood. The other was strangely blurred. I swung the android up onto my back.

  Marco said.

  We bailed.

  I yelled, plowing a swath through the floor toward the front door.

  I lifted my trunk and blasted a high, enraged scream.

  Then I barreled through the doorway, tearing out an elephant-sized chunk of wall.

  WHUMPF! CRRRACK!

  "Whoa! Get out of the way! Move it!"

  "Back off, people! I need a clear shot! Back off!"

  Chaos. People darting everywhere.

  Tobias, still dive-bombing with a gun in his

  talons, was trying to keep Cassie's mom from getting a clear shot with her dart gun.

  Pop!

  I said.

  I caught sight of Ax, planted squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, and scooped him up with my trunk as I thundered through the milling crowd.

  Ax said, lifting his tail.

  I said, surging forward and holding Ax out like a weapon.

  "Skunk! Oh, no! It's spraying! Get out of the way!"

  The mob parted. I heard them shouting, saw their panicked bodies hurtling aside as I rocketed past.

  CCCRRREEEAK!

  Tobias yelled.

  I called back, charging down the street. I spotted Jake up ahead and followed him.

  he cried.

  Lourdes said.

  Tobias said, flapping hard for altitude.

  Marco said.

  I said anxiously, blinking in a futile effort to clear my eyes.

  Marco said breathlessly.

  The sound of sirens filled the air. Tires squealed as the cops gave chase.

  Tobias called.

  "Turn left, Rachel," Lourdes said. "Follow the dead-end street to the junkyard. I can be hidden there until the signal from the Pemalite ship is turned off."

  I gasped as I stumbled over a broken slab of asphalt.

  Cassie called weakly.

  I cried, barreling desperately down the deserted street and up to the junkyard's padlocked metal gates.

  I held Ax safely out of the way under my front legs and, pressing my bleeding head against the gates, pushed until the lock sprung open.

  My head didn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurt.

  I was swaying now. It surprised me when my front legs simply buckled. I hit hard, but I wasn't feeling much anymore when my tusks dug into dirt.

  The Chee, Cassie, and Marco must have tumbled from my back. But I was too confused to know. Confused. Head spinning, eyes going dark.

  Nothing made sense. I was sinking. Sinking into a deep, deep, soft bed and . . . and someone kept yelling,

  We were a shaken-up bunch of animal-morphing freaks by the time we at last made it home. A situation that should have been a walk in the park had turned into a mess.

  The Chee were grateful to us. Me, I was grateful that Tobias and Ax had shown up when they did.

  I was definitely not in the best of moods. I was feeling brittle and tired and mad at the world. Maybe it was just one too many battles. Or maybe it was because I'd been thinking about what we had to do next.

  Dive fifteen thousand feet down into the cold, dark ocean.

  Deeper than we'd ever gone before.

  Deeper than a dolphin or a hammerhead shark could dive.

  Up against an enemy that couldn't be fought: the deadly, crushing pressure.

  It worried me because I couldn't think of a way to beat it, and if we couldn't beat it, then it would beat us.

  Crush us.

  And all of it in a hurry. The time was counting down.

  Ticktock.

  We couldn't go to Cassie's barn. We couldn't risk her parents making her do anything. We were all looking at plenty of parental trouble, but we had no time. Better a week of being grounded compared to losing this battle.

  We assembled in the woods near Tobias's meadow.

  Ax said.

  "It is for us, Ax-man," Marco said. "We'll be crushed like a beer can on a frat boy's forehead."

  Ax wondered.

  "Forget it," Marco said. "It was only a joke."

  "Not really," I said.

  Ax replied, nodding.

  "Not really," I repeated, giving Marco a look.

  I was teasing Marco. But the truth was, there

  was nothing funny about being crushed to death. The image of it bothered me. The feeling of being squeezed on every inch of my body, pushed inward, internal organs squishing and . . .

  "I don't know how we're going to do this," I blurted. "None of our morphs are capable of diving that deep and without one, we're talking about a kamikaze mission, here."

  <"Kamikaze"?> Ax asked.

  "It means suicide, Ax," I said. "Death, to you and me."

  "Saving the Chee isn't going to be a suicide mission," Jake said, glaring at me. "You're overreacting, Rachel."

  My jaw dropped.

  Worrying about something as lethal as atmospheric pressure was overreacting? Wanting to get home in one piece instead of dying a stifling, airless death on the dark ocean floor was overreacting?

  Since when?

  If Cassie had said it, Jake wouldn't have told her she was overreacting. He would have agreed. He would have thought she was being sensibly cautious.

  Wasn't I allowed to be cautious?

  No, of course not, I thought bitterly. I'm supposed to be a reckless fighting machine and fighting machines don't feel caution or fear. And even if they do, they don't advertise it.

  "Well, excuse me, I guess I'll just shut up and follow orders," I said.

  "Look, I'm sorry, Rachel," Jake said tiredly. "You made a good point in a bad way, okay? But nobody's gonna die because we're not gonna dive unless we find the right morph."

  Ax asked.

  "I don't think so," Cassie said, frowning. "I mean, the only deep-sea creature that even comes close is a sperm whale, and their record is like ten or twelve thousand feet, I think."

  Tobias offered lamely.

  "Yeah, we could tell everyone we're going to find the Titanic," Marco said. "We could see if Leo DiCaprio is floating around down there. But what do we do if we get down there in a stolen sub? We still have to get inside this Pemalite ship."

  "It was just an idea," I said, defending Tobias.

  We each had at least one situation that still gave us nightmares. I had more than one. Sometimes they were all mixed up and fragmented, like shattered glass that just keeps on reflecting broken, jagged images.

  And we each had morphs we'd hated.

  Tobias's worst moments all dealt with water.

  Tobias said glumly.

  "Hello!" Cassie cried suddenly. "That's it! Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea! Hah! I think we may have a solution!"

  "Wasn't it Journey to the Bottom of the Sea?" Marco asked.

  "No, it was Voyage," Jake confirmed.

  "Journey sounds better," Marco said.

  Jake sighed. "Hey, time marches on, right? We're in a hurry. What are you thinking, Cassie?"

  "Calamari," she said with a grin.

  "Snails?" I said, frowning.

  Ax said.

  "Wait, that's not-" Cassie said loudly.

  Ax continued.

  "You ate a snail through your hoof?" I asked. That picture temporarily replaced the image of me being squashed to the size of a Barbie doll on the ocean floor.

 

  "Ooookay, I think that's probably enough about snails," Jake said.

  "Yeah, especially since calamari does not mean snail," Cassie pointed out. "Escargot means snail. I was talking about -"

  Tobias grumped.

  "Squid!" Cassie yelled suddenly. The birds in the trees around us fell silent. So did we.

  Until Tobias said,

  "Oh. Who. CARES?" Cassie cried. "Squid. We can morph a giant squid!

  Giant squid dive really deep. And they have arms, so we could maybe get into the Pemalite ship."

  I met Marco's gaze. "Why didn't she just say that to begin with?"

  "Could have saved a lot of time," Marco agreed, playing along.

  Ax wondered.

  Cassie threw up her hands. "It's a book. Journey to -"

  "Ah HAH! It was Journey!"

  "I mean Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," Cassie grated. "Captain Nemo was attacked by a giant squid."

  "Who won?" Marco asked.

  "Wait a minute," I said. "It wasn't Journey or Voyage. It was 20,000

  Leagues Under the Sea. Jules Verne."

  Cassie looked like she might strangle me. Then she said, "Oh yeah. Voyage was a TV show. They run it on the Sci-Fi channel."

  "I thought it was on Nick at Night," Marco said.

  At which point everyone started giggling.

  "Someone call the Chee and tell them they're doomed," I said. "Their only hope is a collection of idiot kids, standing around in the woods debating cable channels."

  "We are in a hurry," Jake said, tapping his wrist where a watch would be. "So? What about giant squid? Where do we find one to acquire?"

  Cassie shook her head, suddenly glum. "I don't know. I hate to say this, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any in captivity."

  "Well, then that's not very helpful, is it?" Marco said.

  Cassie shrugged. "No. And it's not like we can go dolphin and find one. The only thing that eats giant squid is the sperm whale."

  Pretending to be more nonchalant than I felt,

  I said, "Okay, so we acquire a sperm whale, dive down, and grab us a big squid."

  Cassie shook her head. "No sperm whales in captivity. There never have been."

  "There has to be a way," Jake said. But he sounded doubtful. "Anyone have any suggestions?"

  No one did.

  "You're kidding," I said. "That's it? We're beat?"

  "We have till ten p.m.," Jake said. "What's that? Eight hours? Not exactly enough time to go whale hunting. Cassie?"

  She held up her hands, helpless. "That was my one idea: squid. The Pemalite ship is just too far down."

  "And time is too short," I said.

  "The alternative is trying to bust into that nuclear facility and get the Chee out. The safe is too strong for us. And one other huge problem: The guards there are normal humans, as far as we know," Jake said. "We can't exactly go busting in and just kick everyone's butt."

  "Anyway, that only solves the problem of that one Chee," Marco pointed out. "What about the others? We can't just leave them sitting around as stiff as lawn ornaments."