Fortunately there's no chance whatsoever that they'll be getting out to tell anyone. In fact, in a way it's to Mhalir's advantage for the Council to see Leareth's abilities up-close. Mhalir wants the Council and their higher-up staff taken alive, they can pretty easily be kept stranded on the planet if they don't have access to shuttles or ships or any of the orbital resources. And they have a lot of intel on the Yeerk deployments elsewhere, that Mhalir himself doesn't have an inkling of because the Yeerk's organization is compartmentalized even at that level. They might be more cooperative if sufficiently terrified. 

Leareth takes a minute to rest before attempting a Gate to a moving ship in orbit. In the meantime he asks his newly-arrived Andalite soldiers whether any of them can morph mage-gift. 

The ones who know how to do this can wade through the others over to him.

He's guessing they have substantially less training than Matirin's people who Leareth could teach on Earth, but hopefully they can throw some fireballs at least? He splits them up by the number of ships he has Gate-coordinates for, then asks them to divide the rest of the troops who can't morph Gifts amongst the groups, and once this is in progress, he Gates the first cohort up to attack one of the other Yeerk ships. 

The Andalite troops are fairly organized and can be reorganized in this fashion reasonably promptly, and then head up to the ship to fight.

Leareth does more Gates. He instructs the Andalites to, once the ships are secured, try to find out if anyone has been to one of the courier ships and could be retrieved for Leareth to pull the memory out of their head and Gate people to those too. 

Mhalir sends a message to the Pool ship again, asking if they've gotten any communications indicating that the ship which the thirteenth Council member was on is secured. (They don't know which ship in orbit it corresponds to, they only had a memory of the interior to go by.) If not, Leareth can Gate in more Andalite soldiers now that they have more available, the five Gifted Andalites might need help. 

They've gotten communications from the ship in question; everyone on it has been stunned or killed but they don't know who the council member was, they're mostly Hork-Bajir the Andalites can't tell apart. They could use additional support in identifying the council member.

Can they transmit pictures down here, Leareth can force the Council and their staff to identify them. 

They can do that. They send shaky video from a handheld camera, panning over every stunned Hork-Bajir on the ship.

Mhalir gets this up on a screen while Leareth compulsions the captive Yeerks to watch it and say the names and ranks they know. 

The captive Yeerks with Hork-Bajir hosts are the only ones who can tell Hork-Bajir apart. Between them they can identify most of the Hork-Bajir, including the one who is on the council.

Mhalir drafts a message with timestamps on the video listed and corresponding identifications, starting with the council member who they should take great pains to guard.

He messages the Pool ship asking for updates on the situation in orbit. Leareth should have Gated attack forces directly into all of the ships except the couriers by now, so hopefully they soon won't have anyone firing on them. He reminds them that every ship they can take intact or with only repairable damage will be very valuable as decoy Yeerk ships for infiltrating the other Yeerk-held territories. 

There is ongoing fighting on board most of the ships right now; the Andalites stopped firing on the ships once their people were gated on, and most of the ships stopped firing back shortly after that. All of them have stopped by now. 

Leareth takes a bit to rest his mage-gift before attempting any more Gates. He's so tired, though not in a way that too badly affects Mhalir's ability to use his Alloran-body for walking and sending messages. He has Gate-location for many of the ground bases but hasn't actually moved people to any of them; he judged the situation in orbit as more critical, shuttles can depart the ground if they like but they won't be going anywhere if all the ships are now in enemy hands.

After a few minutes he informs Mhalir that he can, if absolutely necessary, Gate troops to the ground bases if any more can be brought in from orbit, but maybe now that the Yeerks are too busy fighting Andalite boarding forces to fire on Andalite ships, they can send shuttles instead? That was so many Gates. 

He moves on to Mindspeech-interrogating the Yeerk Council and staff on the resources and deployments at various other ground bases.

They can indeed send shuttles instead. 

The Yeerk Council tries very hard to resist interrogation. When this does not work they try giving up control of their hosts so they can't be interrogated. 

This is moderately inconvenient but Leareth can still Thoughtsense Yeerks even if they're not controlling hosts. He's more concerned about terrified, just-freed Hork-Bajir; he Mindspeaks them asking them to please stay calm while they finish defeating the Yeerks here, and readies himself to enforce this via compulsion if it turns out the 'don't resist' surrender compulsions only hit their Yeerks. 

It seems like the surrender compulsions either hit the hosts too or they're otherwise inclined to freeze not fight when terrified.

Mhalir is in charge of communications and passes on anything Leareth is able to learn to the Pool ship, which can distribute it to the appropriate parties. 

They wait and watch. 

The Andalites communicate about ten minutes later that none of the ships have substantial resistance. Some have some Yeerks in a safe room whose walls they could blast but not without killing anyone inside. They can't do anything there so they are inclined to leave them for the moment.

Yes, that seems correct for now. Once everything is settled, Leareth, or Andalites-with-Gifts who have the minimal compulsions training, can use that to get them out without killing them, mage-gift works through most kinds of wall. 

Leareth Mindspeaks the Andalites on the ground with him. He would like the Yeerks at this location to be thoroughly searched for weapons if still in a host, not that Hork-Bajir hosts really need extra weapons to be dangerous, and then secured with locked doors or something in addition to the compulsions, just in case. Any Yeerks not in hosts should be brought to the pool so they don't die. And he would like a shuttle to take him back to the Pool ship. 

(So he can collapse in a heap and take a nap, but he doesn't say that.) 

He asks the Andalite in command of the ground force here to take over communications once he heads out. 

The Andalites get to work on this. They are very grateful for his work here. 

Once he's confident there are enough eyes and weapons on the room, Leareth ducks out and demorphs to human. It hasn't been two hours yet but no reason to push it. He sits down and waits for the shuttle.

<I think that went quite smoothly.> Mhalir sounds pleased. 

:Yes, I agree: Leareth is mostly too tired to feel pleased about it, though.