Free The Predator by K. A. Applegate Page B

had told us that the Hork-Bajir were a good, decent people who had been enslaved against their will by the Yeerks.
    Uh-huh. Maybe so. But what they looked like was a whole different thing. Hork-Bajir are big, walking razor blades. They’re about seven feet tall, two arms, two legs, and a nasty spiked tail similar to Andalite tails.
    There are swordlike blades raked forward from their snake heads. There are blades at their elbows and wrists and knees.
    I mean, let me put it this way: If Klingons were real, they would be scared of Hork-Bajir.
     Jake again.
    The Hork-Bajir stepped clear of the Bug fighter. Then, he just stood there.
     Ax reminded us.
     I said.
    Why was the Hork-Bajir just standing there? He should’ve been looking around. After all, he was answering a distress beacon. Why was he just standing there like he was waiting for something?
     Jake said in our heads.
    “Tsseeeeerrrr!”

    Tobias swooped, falling from the sky at close to a hundred miles an hour. He raked his talons forward and hit the Hork-Bajir’s face.
    “RROOWWWRR!”
Jake leaped from cover. He sailed through the air and hit the Hork-Bajir with paws outstretched, claws bared.
    The Hork-Bajir went down hard.
    Jake rolled away as the Hork-Bajir slashed the air like an out-of-control food processor.
    But just then Rachel rumbled up, as big as a tank.
     Rachel said.
    She pressed one big, tree-stump leg on the Hork-Bajir’s chest and pressed him down against the ground. She did not crush him, just held him like a bug who could easily be squashed.
    The Hork-Bajir decided it was time to stop struggling and lie very still.
    Too
easy,
a part of my mind warned me.
Too easy. No Hork-Bajir-Controller has ever just given up like that.
    But I had other problems. My job was to get inside the Bug fighter. Get the Taxxon pilot. I yelled.
    I ran forward, loping clumsily on my squat gorilla legs, swinging my massive, mighty gorilla arms. Cassie and Ax were right there with me. Taxxons are disgusting, oversized centipedes, but I wasn’t worried.We were more than enough to handle a Taxxon. But then —
    Zzzzzzzzaaapppp!
    A brilliant red beam of light sliced the air just inches in front of me. It blocked my way.
    Zzzzzzzzaaaapppp!
    Another beam of blinding red light. This crossed behind me. It exploded gravel into steam as it traced a path!
     Ax cried.
    I spun around, looking for cover.
    Zzzzzzaaaaappppp!
     Cassie screamed in our heads.
    I looked, as the Dracon beams formed a cage of deadly light around us. The edge of the quarry above was lined with Hork-Bajir. I looked left. More! To the right … more!
    The entire quarry was lined with Hork-Bajir warriors, each armed with a Dracon beam. There must have been a hundred of them. We were surrounded.
    Completely surrounded.
     Jake snapped.
     Rachel yelled.
    
    Cassie called Tobias.
     he said.
    The reality settled over us. The despair.
     Cassie wailed.
    has
to be!> Rachel yelled.
     I said grimly.
    We were trapped. Outnumbered. Outsmarted.
    Finished.
    And that was when
he
came.

CHAPTER 19
    H e looked so much like Ax. So much like Prince Elfangor. And yet, so totally different. The difference wasn’t something you saw. It was something you felt.
    A shadow on your soul. A darkness that blotted out the light of the sun. Evil. Destruction.
    Not the impersonal, programmed destructiveness of the ants. This was warm-blooded, deliberate