... Go forth, mighty warriors! Go forth into space! All the galaxy shall tremble before the Helmacrons. All will obey us. All will be our slaves. For only we are truly worthy to be Lords of the Universe ...

... A swift, silvery machine, no more than seven or eight inches long, swooped into the room ... Tseew! Tseew! Jake was cradling his right arm. I looked at it and saw two tiny holes burned through the sleeve of his morphing outfit. "That little toy spaceship just shot me!" ...

... They were about the same size as we were. Maybe a sixteenth of an inch ... Their heads were all we saw at first. They were perfectly flat on top, quite wide. From the flat top their faces came down in a sort of squashed inverted pyramid to a hooked, barbed chin. Eyes sat atop the flat heads like big green marbles that looked like they could roll off at any moment. Their mouth parts looked insect-like, with gnashing sideways teeth ... I could see they were all dressed in silvery, one-piece suits, covering bodies that were almost human, if you overlooked the extra set of legs. The suits had turquoise collars ...

... Four of the little monsters came racing out to grab us. Up close, they gave an even more bizarre impression of being half-human, half-insect ... They kept their weapons leveled at us as they quick-marched us toward their ship ... It was very big at this scale. It may have seemed like a toy to us before, but now it was immense, bigger than a Yeerk Pool Ship. There would be room for hundreds, if not thousands, of Helmacrons on-board ...

... We entered a room with a dome ceiling and a shallow bowl floor. In the center of the room stood a single Helmacron. Beams of light illuminated him like a movie star on Oscar night. He looked like any of the Helmacrons, except for the fact that he was wearing a flowing, gold cape. And there was one other difference ... The Helmacron captain did not move. Did not breathe. His eyes did not look at us. He was covered with what looked a lot like bread mold and cobwebs. What was worse, it was fairly obvious how heÌd died. His arms and four legs were shackled, bolted to the deck. Three long, steel swords were sticking through his body. It all looked very ceremonial ...