by Timothy Zahn
And whether they cared enough about the surrounding real estate to nuke the place, Melinda added to herself. But that line of reasoning was too unproductive and unpleasant to bring up. Holloway had undoubtedly already thought of it, anyway.
With all the activity going on outside, Melinda had expected to find the command complex in more or less the same state, with troops busily dismantling and moving equipment out to the aircars. To her surprise the place was already nearly empty, with only a handful of Peacekeepers still monitoring what was left of the equipment. "You work fast," she commented.
"Like I said, we prepped as best we could," Holloway said, moving across the empty room to a console with a half-dozen displays showing complicated-looking patterns. "Crane, what's the latest on our visitors?"
"Still incoming," the young man said, his voice quavering a little. "The yacht and Conquerors both. And we picked up a new signal just a couple of minutes ago. Looks like two of the Corvines are coming back."
Holloway frowned. "Just two of them?"
"That's what the baseline says," Crane said. "The fueler's still outgoing; I assume the other fighters are still with it."
Holloway looked at Melinda. "Did the fueler have a tachyon detector built into the hull? Never mind," he waved the question away before she could answer. "They left before the Conqueror wake-trails showed up. Means those two Corvines don't know what they're flying into. Crane, what's their ETA?"
"If they do a standard mesh, a couple of minutes before the yacht and Conquerors are due in," Crane said.
"Doesn't rain but it pours," Holloway commented. "All right, get a laser trained on their vector. We'll want to give them as much warning as we can."
"Yes, sir," the other said, keying his board.
"It should just be a couple more minutes before the yacht meshes in," Holloway said to Melinda. "You know what you're going to say?"
Melinda nodded, wishing she knew how to read the patterns on those displays. It was like sitting in pitch-darkness, listening to the breathing of some unknown animal. Not knowing when or how it was going to strike.
Something on the console pinged, making Melinda jump. "Colonel, the Corvines have meshed in," Crane said. "We've got laser contact."
"Corvines, this is Colonel Holloway," Holloway said. "We've got a red-alert situation here: five or more bogies incoming, probable Conqueror warships. What's your current status?"
There was a moment of silence, punctuated by what might have been an under-the-breath curse. "This is Lieutenant Bethmann, Colonel," a voice said. "I'd say as of right now our status is that of support units under your command. What are your orders?"
"Get down here as fast as you can. You have a grid location for the colony?"
"We've got it, yes, sir."
"We're evacuating to a canyon in the mountains seventy-two klicks due east of the settlement," Holloway told him. "Come in from the north, and we'll guide you down."
"Acknowledged," Bethmann said. "On our way."
Holloway keyed off. "Well, at least we may now have a way to plug that gap in the eastern wall," he commented. "What's ETA on the yacht, Crane?"
"Forty-five seconds, sir," Crane said.
"Good. You ready, Doctor?"
"Yes," Melinda said, conscious again of the thudding of her heart. "Colonel, how soon after the Conquerors mesh in can they get to the surface?"
Holloway shrugged. "Depends on how far out they do their mesh. We usually run an eight-thousand-klick safety margin ourselves, but there's no reason you can't come in a lot closer. If I were commanding an attack force, I'd bring us in as tight as I could without getting into serious magnetic-field conduction problems. I'm guessing they'll mesh a couple thousand klicks out. Maybe only a thousand, if their commander is a little nuts. We'll know soon enough."
"I see," Melinda murmured.
"Don't worry, we should have plenty of time to get to the canyon before they get here." He threw her a measuring look. "Sorry you stayed?"
She looked at the enigmatic patterns on the displays. "I'm fine."
The console pinged again. "Yacht's meshed," Crane announced. "Go ahead, Doctor."
"Cavatina, this is Melinda Cavanagh," Melinda called. "Dad, you have to get out of here right away. There's a Conqueror force coming in right behind you."
"Dr. Cavanagh, this is Captain Teva," the familiar voice of the Cavatina's commander came back. "We confirm the wake-trail; you sure it's a Conqueror force?"
"Quite sure," Melinda told him, her eyes on the displays. Wishing she knew what they were telling her. "Is my father there?"
There was a brief pause. "I'm afraid he's not with us," Teva said. "But he said to tell your brother that the vector search had come up dry."
So he hadn't been able to get anything about the Conquerors from the Mrach legends. Just as well Aric and Quinn hadn't waited. "I understand," she told Teva. "Now get out of here."
"Doctor, if a Conqueror force is coming in - "
"There's nothing you can do," Melinda cut him off. "You can't get to me in time; and if you try, you'll fly right into them. Don't worry about me - I'm with the Peacekeeper force here. You just get out of here and sound the alarm."
"Doctor, I have a responsibility to you."
"Your responsibility is to the ship and to the family," Melinda said, enunciating the words carefully. "And to obey all family orders. Is that clear?"
She could picture the pinched look on Teva's face. But the coded phrasing was precise and unequivocal... and Teva did know his responsibilities. "Clear, Dr. Cavanagh," he sighed. "Good luck."
"You too."
Holloway motioned, and Crane keyed off the transmitter. "Does he mean it?"
"Yes," Melinda said. So that was it. She was here, and she was in for the duration. "Shouldn't we be getting out of here ourselves?"
"Go ahead," Holloway said, his attention on the displays again. "I want to wait and see what size force we're up against. Get on any of the aircars out there that has room for you."
"All right." Melinda turned and started for the door. She was nearly there when the console pinged a third time -
"Colonel!" Crane yelped.
Melinda spun back around. "What?"
"They're right on top of us," Holloway gritted, slapping Crane's shoulder and racing toward Melinda. "This is Holloway," he barked into his comm. "Full alert - the bogies have meshed at atmosphere level - five hundred klicks up. All personnel and vehicles, get out of the settlement immediately."
The words were barely out of his mouth when a violent thunderclap rocked the building. Melinda fought for balance, dimly aware that Crane was shouting something through the ringing in her ears.
And then Holloway was beside her, steadying her with a firm grip on her upper arm. "What happened?" she shouted.
"They hit the main transmitter," he shouted back, turning her back toward the door again. "Laser blast. Let's go."
They ran outside, Crane right behind them. Melinda looked up - "Colonel!" she gasped, jerking back against him. Overhead a dozen air vehicles were hovering all around them -
"What are you doing?" he demanded, grabbing her arm again and hauling her bodily away from the complex. "Those are ours. Come on."
She let him lead her toward the last aircar still waiting on the ground, feeling a hot flush of mortification rush across her face as she watched the vehicles overhead swing out of their vertical ascents and head east. A second later the embarrassment was forgotten as a brilliant flash lit up the hills to the west. "Another shot," Holloway shouted, his grip on her arm tightening. "Brace yourself - "
The thunderclap seemed quieter this time; but to her surprise the ground tilted wildly beneath her as the sound seemed to drive straight through her head. She fought for balance, felt a second hand on her other arm -
And then, suddenly, she was being pulled up a short ramp into a low-ceilinged metal compartment. "Sit down," Holloway ordered, pushing her down into one of a pair of empty seats just behind th
e cockpit area and dropping into the other one himself. "Bremmer - go!"
The aircar lurched upward and swung around. Her head still throbbing, Melinda fumbled with the unfamiliar military-style restraints, getting them fastened just as the pilot opened the throttle and sent them roaring eastward.
"You all right?" Holloway asked.
"Fine," Melinda said, blinking her eyes a couple of times and stretching her jaw experimentally. She wasn't quite fine, not yet, but she was definitely headed that direction. "What happened? Sonic shock?"
"Probably." Holloway took her face in his hands, turning it toward him and peering into her eyes. "Your pupils look okay," he said, letting go again. "Must have just shaken up your inner ear a little."
"Yes," she agreed, looking around with some surprise. From the size of the aircar she'd expected it to be a passenger design, with room for forty or fifty people. But aside from the pilot and copilot, the cabin was equipped with only six other seats. Crane was in one; the remaining three held grim-faced men in civilian clothing.
"It's a cargo carrier," Holloway explained, ducking his head slightly to look past the pilot's shoulder at the foothills rolling past beneath them. "Bremmer, you picking up any bogies yet?"
"No, sir," the pilot said. "But the range on this thing isn't very good. Shall I call the array at the canyon?"
"You wouldn't get through," Holloway said. "Cash to crinkles that second shot took out the backup transmitter. Just keep her low and fast."
The minutes crept by. Melinda leaned close to Holloway, trying to get as good a view as she could out the cockpit canopy, the only windows on the aircar. The plains and low hills began to give way to taller mountains, some covered with squat, rubbery-looking trees, others craggy and bare except for occasional patches of ground cover. The aircar hugged the ground, staying no more than a few meters above treetop level, dipping and rising with the terrain. As they ducked over some of the higher passes, she could see snow-covered peaks in the distance, and she wondered how high up in those mountains Holloway's canyon was situated. If they were going to have to deal with frostbite and hypothermia -
"We're picking up something, Colonel," the copilot said suddenly. "Coming into detection range behind us - "
He was cut off by a brilliant flash to their right. Reflexively, Melinda twisted her head away, just in time to catch Holloway's shoulder with her forehead as the aircar lurched to the side. She rocked back again as the pilot straightened out; and then the crash webbing whipped out, wrapping protectively around her and pinning her in place. "How bad?" Holloway shouted over the suddenly shrill engine noise.
"Bad," the pilot shouted back. "Starboard stub's gone - airfoils inoperative. We're going down."
Melinda set her teeth together to protect them, straining against the grip of the crash webbing to look ahead out the canopy. The wooded hills, still shooting past underneath, were rising toward them at an alarming pace. An unusually tall tree suddenly appeared in front of them, twisting to the side at the last second as the pilot managed to veer around it. They dropped to treetop level, and the whine of the engine was drowned out by the cacophony of branches scraping across the underside of the aircar. Farther down, and suddenly Melinda was being thrown back and forth inside the webbing as the aircar twisted furiously between the trees like a crazed snake. She squinted her eyes half-shut against the shaking as they fell, not wanting to watch but unable to look away. The screech of branches against metal was all around them now, a banshee scream of imminent death -
And with a horrendous crash, they hit.
"You all right?" Holloway asked.
Melinda blinked her eyes open. The aircar was down, the whine of the engines had stopped, and aside from an unpleasant tingle where her skin was pressed tightly against the crash webbing, she seemed to be unhurt. "Yes," she said. "How long was I out?"
"Minute or so," Holloway said. He'd already freed himself from his webbing; forcing a hand through the mesh at her side, he triggered her release. "We've got to make tracks," he said as the webbing retracted. "There's a camo suit under your seat. Get it out and put it on."
Melinda obeyed, pulling out the heavy package and unfolding it. It consisted of a hooded serape and a thick belt connected together by a slender tube. Sliding forward in her seat, she got the belt on and pulled the serape over her head. The material was heavy and thick, with an odd texture to it.
"Ever fired an Oberon assault gun?"
"I've shot rifles a few times," Melinda said, getting shakily to her feet and looking around. The last of the other passengers, also wearing a camo serape, was just easing past the torn and twisted metal where the door had been, a thick and thoroughly nasty-looking double-barreled military rifle clutched in his hand. Crane was standing next to the gash, pulling two more of the assault guns from an open storage rack. "It was nothing like that, though."
"Then this isn't the time to learn," Holloway decided, accepting one of the assault guns from Crane and ushering Melinda toward the exit. "First-aid kit's under the pilot seat - grab it. We've got to get to cover before a follow-up ship gets here."
The crash had gouged a surprisingly wide gash through the surrounding landscape, probably much of the damage caused by trees knocking each other down as the aircar plowed its way through. Ahead Melinda could see the three civilians picking their way carefully across the rubble toward the nearest edge of standing timber, their serapes rippling in the breeze. The pilot and copilot were angling to either side of the civilians' direction, the copilot limping heavily.
"This way, Doctor," Holloway said, pointing toward the copilot. "Crane, you go with Bremmer. Find some cover and dig in. Stay off the comm - the Conquerors like to track radios. Whistles and hand signals only."
"Right."
Holloway and Melinda reached the edge of the trees the same time as the copilot. "That looks good over there," Holloway said, pointing to a low rock formation. "Wei, how's the ankle?"
"Not too bad, Colonel," the copilot said, his voice soft and polite. "I don't think it's broken."
"We'll find out soon enough," Holloway said, taking his arm and helping him to the cover of the rock. "Did you get a Mayday out before we hit?"
"Yes, sir," Wei said, wincing as he sat down on the ground. "But there was no response. We're still eight klicks out - they probably didn't pick us up."
"One of the other aircars might have, though," Holloway said, unslinging his assault gun. "Check his ankle, Doctor. No, hold it - let me get your suit going first."
Melinda held still as he reached under her serape and slid a switch forward on her belt. Faintly, from the hood, she heard a gentle hissing. "What's that?" she asked.
"Liquid nitrogen from the belt tanks," he said, reaching under his own serape. "Works with the reflective layering to erase your infrared signature. Here's the other half of the mirage," he added, pulling a fat disk from under his serape. Working his right arm free from the serape, he clicked a switch on the disk and threw it through the trees to land about twenty meters away from them, roughly opposite the aircar's nose. "If the thing works - for a change - it should now look more like a human being than we do."
"Of course, it's all a waste of time if they don't have IR detectors," Wei pointed out. "Or don't know what a human signature looks like."
"We can but try," Holloway agreed. "Okay, Doctor, go ahead and check his ankle."
Carefully, Melinda got Wei's boot off, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down the middle of her back despite the cooling effect of the serape against it. She was a doctor, certainly, and had had the whole spectrum of medical training. But theory and simulation work were a far cry from working on living patients. What actual surgery she'd done was years in her past, and she wasn't at all sure how well she was going to be able to dust off those skills.
But for the moment, at least, it wasn't a challenge she had to face. "It's just a sprain," she assured Wei, opening the first-aid kit and digging out a pressure bandage. "It should be all right in a f
ew - "
"Quiet," Holloway cut her off. "Something's coming."
Melinda froze, listening. In the distance she could hear a faint humming sound. "One of ours?" she whispered.
"Doesn't sound like it," Holloway said grimly, working a pair of slides on his assault gun. "Wei, signal Bremmer and Crane to get ready."
"Yes, sir," Wei said, digging a slender tube from his tunic pocket and looping the attached chain around his neck. Lifting the tube to his lips, he blew three short oddly pitched trills and then one long one. The answer came immediately: one long and one short.
"I think I see them," Holloway said, peering up through the trees. "Cavanagh, get as much of you under your serape as you can and stay put."
Melinda hunched down behind the edge of the rock formation, pulling her legs up beneath the edge of the serape and tightening the hood a little closer around her face. The humming was getting louder, and she caught a flicker of something white as it shot past a gap in the tree canopy above. Clenching her teeth, she braced herself -
And suddenly it was there, swooping across the gap gouged by the crashing aircar: a milky-white dragonfly-like vehicle, topped with a circular haze of whirling rotors. It made a tight loop around the crushed nose of the aircar and then moved around behind it. For a moment it hovered there, sending up a cloud of dust from the freshly turned earth, swiveling its nose gently back and forth as if deliberately inviting anyone nearby to attack. Melinda tensed, but the Peacekeepers held their fire, and a minute later the ship settled to the ground. On both sides doors popped open.
And from them two aliens stepped out.
Melinda squinted across the dusty clearing, her fear momentarily forgotten in sudden clinical interest. The aliens were like nothing she'd ever seen before: roughly human in height, with slender bipedal builds and thin, narrow heads that extended well behind them. Good cranial capacity, with enough brain size for mental capability plus strong manipulative control. They were too far away for her to get a good look at the hands, but from the way they gripped the gray sticks they were holding, they clearly had opposable thumbs. Possibly two per hand, in fact. They had tails, too, short flat things that extended from low dorsal ridges just above the juncture of the legs and continually twirled around in a corkscrewing motion that reminded her of a water creature she'd seen once. A heat radiator, possibly, or perhaps some sort of atmospheric sampler like those in snake tongues. One of the aliens turned in her direction, giving her a clear view of a triangular face, deep-set eyes beneath brow ridges, and a pointed snout reminiscent of a bird's beak. They walked slightly bent forward, their feet appearing to have something of the same splayfooted design of seagull feet except without any webbing between the toes.
