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The thing about command, Esplin 9466 mused silently, was that nobody told you how difficult it was before they handed it to you. Sure, people in charge always looked busy, but there was a difference between seeing a somewhat stressed commander and having to maintain discipline between hundreds or thousands of troops while the Council breathed down your neck and a handful of rogue bandits made your efforts at controlling a military operation a laughing stock.
“Visser?” a timid human voice called from the doorway, laced with the very real fear that Esplin might kill the messenger. “There’s… a complication. The Andalite bandits, sir.”
<Think of them and they appear, eh, Esplin?> a mildly amused voice rang in his head.
Also that. The Andalite. Alloran. It had taken years and years to beat his resistance to pulp and five minutes with some random aristh had brought him out again, almost in full force. He remembered their conversation constantly, when he wasn’t thinking of his wife, or mocking the Visser. Esplin contemplated replying in kind, maybe throwing in a threat or two, but that would only encourage him. He needed to demoralise him with actions. Last time, he’d started a habit of eating his enemies, which provoked some rather deep insecurities in the prey species. But there had been so few enemies to eat recently. Ever since he was chained to this stupid Earth campaign, and the local enemy forces reduced to a small, weak but frustratingly elusive guerilla band.
Esplin was dimply aware that the messenger still lurked in the doorway, eyeing his tail-blade nervously. For a brief moment, he considered beheading him, then decided against it. <Don’t you have work to do?> he instead said acidly, and the messenger all but bolted down the corridor.
Esplin vacated the room at a rather more sedate pace and headed for the control deck. As soon as he entered, he was hit with the a panicked report delivered verbally by one of the engineers as fast as she could move her human host’s mouth.
“They’re attacking the new factory, sir. We don’t know how they got in, but they – ”
<Launch the Blade ship and get me some Bug fighters in the air,> he interrupted. <Are they cornered?>
“N-no, they’re – ”
<I expect them to be locked down by the time we arrive. They must not escape, you understand? The factory can be rebuilt.>
The metal floor under his feet trembled as the Blade ship started to move. Their Earth campaign was, unfortunately, somewhat limiting in where he could take his ship and when. If he dropped shield in sight of humans, it could cause a real mess. Esplin blocked out the engineer’s chatter and briefly closed all four eyes.
Earth. Why did it have to be Earth? There was a perfectly good military campaign well underway on Leera that he could lead competently and honourably. There were several other campaigns being established on other promising planets. But somehow, he’d gotten Earth. The secret invasion full of espionage and subtlety and Andalite bandits who fought from the shadows and used incredibly strange and unpredictable strategies, who could fall for the simplest baited trap that even the most basic Andalite military training warned against and yet display a shocking amount of flexibility in their battle tactics. Not only that, but he was trying to fight humans. Oh, sure, they were weak, half-blind, stupid little creatures, but one would have to be blind not to notice their strange natural advantages. Everything humans did was about war. Andalites and Yeerks could be trained into a military force, with effort, but teaching a Yeerk war was like turning a Hork-Bajir’s blades into a weapon; perfectly possible, but not ideal. They’d had world peace before the Andalites came, after all. And Esplin could still detect the natural Andalite mind under Alloran’s layers of training and experience. Once, he would’ve thought nothing of it; but he’d been inside human minds, too, and the difference was shocking.
Humans, from the most mild-mannered office manager to the most self-absorbed teenager, were warriors. They had evolved in near-constant war, their societal development was all based around war, and even their entertainment was just various abstractions of war. A Yeerk grub might learn to dance as a recreational activity, and would have to be trained to enjoy battle simulations. A human child would automatically entertain themselves by simulating conflict with other children. Even their ‘sports’ were just ways to simulate a battle without killing each other. The average human was no match for Yeerk military, of course, and their technology was pathetic, but they did have a baseline advantage. If you cornered a human and they thought you were a threat, they would take whatever resources they had at hand and deal with that threat; they would fashion sticks into clubs, they would fashion strangers into units of soldiers. Nobody had to teach them to do it. They just did it instinctively. Which made every one of the millions and millions of civilians on the planet he was in charge of an active, if low-level, threat. And as much as he wanted to engage them in open battle, he could see why the Council insisted on a secret takeover of such an enemy.
Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.
The Blade ship touched down on the roof of the factory, carefully built so that there were no free humans around to witness the suspicious sight, and the Visser disembarked. He could hear the sounds of battle below, which meant that his orders to corner the bandits had apparently been ignored. But they were still present, at least. He put a little extra effort into his aura of menace before entering. It was exhausting to do – broadcasting raw emotion was somewhat more difficult than concepts or words – and it was very difficult to focus on thoughtspeaking different things to different people simultaneously, so it had the unfortunate side effect of making him publicly shout almost everything without really noticing unless he made a large effort not to, but its effect on his enemies and subordinates could not be denied. Most of the time, they had no idea he was even projecting at them, and simply assumed that they were naturally terrified of his presence.
It probably helped that most people were naturally terrified of his presence.
He leapt neatly through a hatch in the roof of the building and galloped down to meet his foes.
The group was sheltered behind some kind of huge piece of collapsed machinery, surrounded by human-Controllers levelling Dracon beams. Burn marks in the walls and pipes showed just how accurate their fire had been thus far, and they stopped shooting altogether when the Visser entered the room. The bandits were in their standard array of morphs. Big shaggy brown thing, big less-shaggy black thing, giant cat thing, big dog thing, and the Andalite youngster who seemed to prefer fighting in his own body. So far as Esplin had been able to discern, the big cat thing was probably their Prince, although they’d been careful to conceal their leadership from him. They rarely spoke to him, didn’t use titles when they did, and used the obvious aristh as a spokesperson whenever possible, presumably to disguise the leadership structure and make it more difficult for him to effectively choose targets. It wouldn’t surprise him if they switched their morphs around as well. In fact, he had no real proof that the child was actually a child; that, too, could be a morph.
No sense puzzling it out. It would only drive him mad.
<Well, well, well.> Visser Three sent the message out in a thoughtspeak wave, a ripple in his aura of menace and fear. <Here we are again. Did you really think that you could take my factory and not be noticed?>
The Andalites, of course, didn’t respond. The big cat thing snarled at him from behind the shelter of a pipe. He narrowed his eyes, just as Alloran’s voice drifted through his mind.
<They’ll defeat you, you know. They’re clever.>
<Perhaps I should take them down in your own body,> Esplin responded idly. <Let an Andalite tailblade sever their heads from their bodies.> He felt Alloran’s horror at the thought, but they’d been down that road before. Esplin wouldn’t allow Alloran the honour of his own body fighting in battle any more than strictly necessary, not even the dubious honour of using it to kill his own kind. Alloran the Andalite was dead, and he would continue to be made to understand that, through every word and thought and deed.
He mentally perused his array of morphs, looking for one he hadn’t tried recently.
<Well, little Andalites,> he said. <Let’s see how you like the Meshranth. I found it on an isolated little moon of an isolated little planet where nearly everything else was dead. Guess what killed them?>
He’d already begun morphing before finishing the sentence, holding an image of the somewhat ridiculous beast in his mind. He’d always found the hunt of new morphs to be a particularly exciting form of recreation, and the most wildly dangerous, the better. To get that close to something made of ripping tentacles or that threw fire or that was covered in poison, to touch it and assert one’s dominance by stealing it’s very essence… that was the true test of power.
The Meshranth had been a particularly good hunt. It was made mostly of two things: tentacles and mouths. Long, fleshy, gripping tentacles that snagged prey and dragged it into one of dozens of waiting mouths. It didn’t move around quickly, but it didn’t need to, not with the speed and reach of those tentacles. It could easily reach anything within the cramped room. Long tubes of flesh extended out from his body, produced gripping barbs; mouths began to open everywhere as his Andalite form melted into a shapeless grey blob. The other Controllers all left the room, very quickly. They had neither the speed nor the grace to contend with such a thing. Did the Andalites? Well, he supposed they would find out.
Waving a tentacle on his left side as if he was about to use it, he instead lashed out from his right, catching the cat-thing off-guard. Before the tentacle could land, the dog-thing jumped in the way; yes, the cat-thing must be their Prince. Esplin wanted to drag the dog-thing in to be eaten (Alloran was outright pleading with him by then, his desperate cries a sweet accompaniment), but the little barbs seemed to have trouble with fur, and instead he simply tore a long strip of flesh from its side. It fell immediately. The big shaggy brown thing let out a bellow and charged straight for him; an easy target, except that the cat-thing was making its way around to his left.
The Meshranth was a capable beast and incredibly difficult to sneak up on. It could take on about three targets with absolutely no trouble. But when the dog-thing shakily stood again, the Visser had five targets to contend with, two of them with fur too thick for the tentacles to grip and all of them with a flagrant disregard for their own skin, happy to sacrifice it to avoid being dragged into one of his gaping, hungry mouths. Instead, the fight was a mess of blood and reflex; claws and teeth dug into tentacles, tentacles lashed at sides. The blue-black blood of the Andalite child mixed with the bright read of the Earth animals and the sickly yellow of the Meshranth, an abstract of violence being sketched on the floor beneath their feet. But the Meshranth could afford to lose much more than any of them. And it didn’t have to move about, while they all did, skidding and sliding in the blood.
And they had no escape.
<Do you tire, little Andalites?> Esplin boomed happily. <Not long now. And I am getting so hungry.> This little speech had the desired effect; the desperate pleading in the Visser’s mind increased. Good. Alloran had to be reminded that there was no hope. He felt the Andalite fight for control of his tentacles and, as always, fail.
Then a hole suddenly appeared in the wall and Andalite bandits, dragging each other when needed, leapt through it.
The bird! He’d forgotten about the bird! And the Meshranth didn’t have the speed to hope to keep up with them in the open, even if it was an acceptable risk to follow.
<Get them!> he commanded every Controller within thought-speak range. <GET THEM! CRUSH THEM TO PULP!>
But no matter how loud he shouted, he couldn’t drown out Alloran’s triumphant laughter.
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<A disaster!> the Visser roared. <A complete disaster!>
Nobody answered. They all knew better than to be noticed when he was in such a mood. Every Controller on deck was bent studiously over some task or another.
<Months of planning. Weeks of construction. Some of those materials are extremely difficult to source here, and we simply cannot take the time to have them shipped in from the Taxxon homeworld again. Find a solution. I don’t care how you do it, I want that factory up in two months.> Esplin didn’t bother to command anybody specific. The relevant staff would know their relevant tasks.
His eyes caught the engineer who had appraised him of the situation in the first place. <You. Have you determined how they found out about this?>
“If they were keeping an eye on our supply lines, they could have deduced it from the materials we were bringing in,” she said thoughtfully.
<Then change them. Do not let them deduce it again.>
“Yes, Visser.”
He turned to leave.
“Uh, Visser?”
Suddenly, a wave of weariness washed over Esplin. He knew what was about to happen. It seemed that the fools under his command couldn’t go two weeks without trying to do something to disrupt it. He didn’t know exactly what form it would take this time, but he recognised the tremor in the engineer’s voice, the hard edge of enquiry lurking under nervousness and fear. They kept doing it, and he kept having to set examples. Every time.
And good engineers were so hard to find.
He didn’t let his feelings show as he regarded the engineer with one stalk eye. <Yes?>
“Even with human morphs, it would be difficult for the Andalites to get a hold of this information. Are we sure they aren’t – ”
His tail-blade was at her throat before he’d even had time to be properly annoyed at the question. Every eye in the room had turned to stare, and he made sure that he was properly radiating menace as he pressed the blade hard enough to be decidedly uncomfortable without killing her. A few drops of blood dripped down her neck, quivering against her body which was rigid and trembling with fear. As if fear even had a point any more. As if there was any chance at all that she would make it out alive.
Fool.
<Tell me,> the Visser said quietly, <how well did you know War-Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul?>
“I, uh… I didn’t, Visser.”
<And how long have you been studying Andalites and their culture?>
“I haven’t, Visser.”
<And how much time do you spend in an Andalite brain, bolstering your already considerable knowledge with first-hand experience? How many campaigns have you done with an Andalite? How often have you fought them, face-to-face? Spoken with them? Negotiated with them, searched for their weaknesses, and used those weaknesses to tear their little war parties to pieces? To take one of them for your own?>
“I… haven’t…”
<How long have you been a Visser for the Yeerk Empire, fool?>
“I’m… I’m not a Visser, Visser.”
<So tell me why it is,> Visser Three continued, his mental voice rising very suddenly to a shout, <that when I say ‘Andalites take the Law of Seerow’s Kindness very seriously’, and that when I point out War-Prince Elfangor was an Andalite of honour who would never so betray his people, when I point out that there is no precedent for such a thing and use my considerable expertise on this very subject to reach a sound and obvious conclusion that the very idea of locals having morphing technology is completely ridiculous… tell me why it is, you insignificant little worm, that you feel the need to challenge my authority on such a subject?>
The engineer opened her mouth as if to respond, but Esplin wasn’t interested. With a twitch of his tail, her head rolled along the floor.
<WELL?!> he bellowed at the rest of the crew on deck, who were all openly staring at him. <GET BACK TO WORK!>
They did. Immediately.
The Visser retired to his quarters, trying to calculate the chances of rebuilding the damaged factory equipment before the Council of Thirteen found out about it. Or even the three other Vissers and multitude of sub-Vissers who were jockeying for the Earth assignment, having never set foot on the planet.
Some days, he was really, really tempted to just step aside and give it to them.