The Ellimist Chronicles (Beyond the Animorphs 3) by K. A. Applegate

Author:K. A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Children's Fiction
ISBN: 9780439217989
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2009-11-17T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Too late to turn back now without showing unacceptable weakness. No choice but to go forward and count on a divided, faction-riven crew and what Lackofa called the weak force of loyalty.

The Explorer was a new ship whose design reflected lessons learned in previous encounters with alien craft. Jicklet and her people had been at work on her for five years. The basic materials had, been drawn from asteroids and from occasional planetfalls. Jicklet had something of an empire now: a large yet cramped complex of shops, foundries, fuelers, hangers, and repair cradles. Ugly crystal and metal structures formed a clunky, asymmetrical ring around the ship, below the fighter stations and above the engines. Jicklet handled the engines, the weapons and the small craft. If there was anyone with more power than the commander, it was Head Tech Jicklet. But in her at least, loyalty was not a weak force.

I had toured the Explorer in its various stages of construction and presided at a ceremony of launching. I was familiar with the ship, but it had rested, unused, in its cradle for the last year.

Jicklet was practically vibrating with anticipation.

"Head Tech, I hate to call on you at such short notice. You know, you're welcome to send one of your subs along if you're otherwise occupied."

A joke, of course. No power in the galaxy could have kept her from flying the Explorer's first mission.

"I think I can make the time," Jicklet said dryly. "May I ask the mission?"

"That watery moon down there. We want to take a look below the surface without using active sensors."

"The Explorer will handle it," she said confidently. It was a pretty craft, a nice melding of Ketran sensibilities and alien pragmatism. A crate, but largely transparent, with flat-crys panels buttressed by force fields. She was not Z-space capable, designed for O and A: Orbit and Atmosphere. There were swooped wings and massive ion propulsion engines at the back. She was fast, versatile, and heavily armed with our own improved version of the Capasin beam weapon, as well as a number of fire-andforget explosive homers. So many weapons. So much killing power.

I put on an approving smile for Jicklet's benefit, but she'd seen my doubts.

"We've come a long way through a dangerous galaxy," she said.

"A long way," I agreed. We had lost our world because the Capasins thought we were aggressors when we were not. What was the moral of that story? That we should be prepared 53

for violence at every turn? Right or wrong, that was the lesson we had learned. We would never be unprepared again.

And yet, here we were displaying our readiness for mayhem in every curve of our ship. Were we setting ourselves up for another, even more complete annihilation?

No time for all that. I needed to clear my mind of possible betrayal and possible wrong impressions. Focus on the mission at hand.

"Let's see what your toy can do, Jicklet."

We went aboard and docked. We were enclosed but able to see stars in every direction but down.

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