It was many years before I saw Earth again. I had fought more battles than I could count. I had won, and I had lost.

The war with the Yeerks dragged on and on. Neither side seemed able to destroy the other. I wondered sometimes if that was just the way it had to be, or if the Ellimists and their unnamed opponents were interfering to keep the war going forever.

Who knows?

A Zero-space rift had opened up between planet Earth and the busy centers of the galaxy. That happens sometimes. It meant that Earth, rather than being days away, was now months and months away.

Maybe it was coincidence. Or maybe it was those great powers of the galaxy, playing their games with the threads of space and time.

But finally we did return. We went to Earth because we got evidence of what I already knew: The Yeerks had targeted Earth.

We went in the brilliant, brand-new Dome ship GalaxyTree. We came out of Zero-space and found ourselves outnumbered. We fought, but this time there was no last-minute rescue.

The Dome was separated from the ship and plunged into Earth’s sea. My brother, Aximili, a young aristh as I had been, was aboard.

And I, desperate enough to break my own vow, took my damaged fighter down to the planet, looking for the place where I had long ago hidden the Time Matrix.

By the time I landed I was too weak from my injuries to even think about finding the Time Matrix. It was buried beneath the concrete foundation of a half-finished building. What had once been peaceful forest was now a construction site.

I lay there dying, knowing that Visser Three would pursue me. Knowing that this time, at long last, he would win over me.

And that’s when five human children, no older than Loren had been when I first met her, came by. Three boys and two girls. Scared at the sight of me. But not so scared that they ran away.

One of them seemed especially drawn to me. And when I saw his face, I knew why.

He could only be Loren’s son. My son.

“Hello,” the one called Tobias said to me.

I broke our Andalite law and gave these children the power to morph. See, I knew what human children can do.

The Yeerks came and I told the human children to hide. But Tobias stayed behind with me for just a few moments. Alone.

<Your mother … tell me about your mother, Tobias. Your family.>

He was surprised. Troubled. “She … disappeared. When I was just little. I don’t know what happened. I guess she died. People say she just left because she was messed up. They said she never got over my father. I don’t know. But I know she has to be dead because she’d never have just left me. No matter what. But maybe that’s just what I told myself. I don’t exactly have a family.”

It was a fresh stab of pain in my hearts. And yet, I knew now that all was not lost.

<Go to your friends, Tobias. They are your family now.>

That’s when I knew there was still hope for my adopted people, the humans of Earth. My son had survived. He was strong in ways even he did not suspect. He would change the course of history.

And oh, as I lie here now, seconds from death, clutched in the power of Visser Three’s monstrous morph, I can see clearly what I only guessed at before.

I remember seeing the time line that curled away from Loren and me. And I remember the burst of light as it was joined with four other human lines, and the line of my own little brother.

Tobias was that line. And joined with these others, he held powers that would make Visser Three tremble.

I, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, having transmitted all my last thoughts and memories to be sent through space to my people, now end my life.

My hirac delest is done. I go in peace to my death. And I leave as my last legacy a single word for all the free peoples of the galaxy.

<Hope …>