<Coming out of Zero-space … now!>

Zero-space is dead white. Normal space is usually deep black, dotted with stars that burn in bright white and pale red and cold blue.

But this space was not like that.

“Jeez! Amazing!”

<You’ve never been close to a nebula,> I observed. But the truth was, even I was awed.

The nebula was a dust cloud so large that a dozen solar systems the size of Earth’s could have been lost in it with room to spare. It was like a weird, twisted cloud. A cloud of purple and orange that seemed to envelop brilliant stars.

“It’s so beautiful!”

<Yes. And if the StarSword is out there somewhere, it’ll really be beautiful.>

I glanced over at Chapman. He lay trussed up and gagged. He glared back at me.

<Right now Yeerk ships are hearing the transponder they attached to us. They’ll be on us in a very short time. I’m conducting a sensor sweep, looking for any Andalite vessels. But it’s hard with the nebula around us. The dust confuses the sensors.>

“Are we a long way from Earth?”

<Yes. Even by the standards of space. We are hundreds of light-years away.>

Loren stared out at the nebula. She bit her lip a little with her teeth and took her arm away from my waist.

Humans like to use touch. It seems odd at first. But I had gotten used to it.

<I’m going to try calling the StarSword,> I said.

I made the thought-speak link with the communications system. <Any Andalite ship this sector, any Andalite ship this sector. This is Jahar.>

I expected to have to wait. I was shocked when I heard the voice of Captain Feyorn. <Jahar! Jahar! Alloran, is that you? We are under attack. Say again, under attack. Can you —>

<StarSword, I lost you! StarSword!> I checked the display. Yes, we had a location fix! I punched in the new heading.

<Loren, get down on the ground. Back against the bulkhead. I’m going to Maximum Burn!>

She ran and threw herself down on the ground, just as I punched in the burn. But the acceleration was barely noticeable. The Jahar had amazingly good compensators. But even though there was no feeling of acceleration, the ship blew through space.

“Elfangor, what’s going on?”

<I don’t know. But I’m powering up all weapons.>

At Maximum Burn it took less than ten minutes for us to be able to spot the great Dome ship. She came up on my view screen at high magnification. She looked like a glowing steel stick with a bright half-ball on one end. Her engines were off. In the space around her were a dozen or more of our fighters.

But what caught my attention were the asteroids — rough, dark tumbling rocks. The StarSword seemed to be in the middle of an asteroid field. Only that was unlikely. Asteroids orbited stars. There was no star close enough to hold an asteroid field in its gravity.

“Hey! It moved!” Loren said.

<What are you talking about?> I demanded. I sounded rude because I was busy trying to figure out what was going on. And I didn’t think a human was going to be very helpful, really.

“Those rocks. Those asteroids. Look! Look at them!”

I turned one stalk eye to watch the asteroids. Then, in a flash, I focused all four eyes.

<They’re moving! They are under power!>

As we stared, transfixed, one of the asteroids seemed to sprout a tail. It was a plume of hot plasma! The asteroid turned! It changed course, and shot toward one of the StarSword’s fighters.

The fighter fired a full-power shredder blast at the asteroid. The green beam zapped through the vacuum. The asteroid glowed where the shredder blast hit, and then it increased speed.

The fighter turned to run. But to my amazement, the asteroid accelerated. It stayed on the fighter’s tail, twisting, turning, accelerating and then …

“Oh! Elfangor, look!”

<No! It’s impossible!>

A pillar of living rock extended from the asteroid like some primitive arm. It struck the fighter. I saw a tiny puff as the air was squeezed from the ship.

And then the rock simply grew over the doomed ship. It grew swift, unstoppable, until, within seconds, the entire fighter was covered by living rock.

The asteroid had eaten a fighter.