by Timothy Zahn
A Mrach Premra-class courier ship.
Or at least, what was left of one. The thing had gone through the wars, all right, or at least a typical Zhirrzh battle. The distinctive Mrach flowing-metal design was blackened and pitted, crisscrossed with bubbled-edge slashes that looked as if they'd cut completely through the outer hull before the interior sealant had caught up with the damage. Nearly all of the port-bow hull was missing completely, the gaping hole having been filled in by a rough white material that didn't look like anything the Mrach used. But the aft section looked relatively untouched, and it had clearly made it in through the atmosphere under its own power. On the near side a group of Zhirrzh had gathered together near the exit ramp, a scene reminiscent of his own arrival three weeks ago.
That could be trouble. If any of them were armed...
"It good?" Thrr-gilag asked from beside him.
Pheylan turned his face a few degrees away from the ship to face into the rising sun. "Yes, it should help," he said, shivering as a breeze intensified the chill soaking through his skin. "It'll take a few more minutes before I'll feel any effect."
Thrr-gilag was silent a moment. "It not work," he said.
Pheylan's heart seemed to seize up. "What do you mean?" he asked, a cold chill running through him that had nothing to do with the air temperature.
"I say it not work," Thrr-gilag repeated, his tongue sliding out to point at Pheylan's soaked jumpsuit. "You try damage with water. But it not damage."
Pheylan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thrr-gilag was smart, all right. But for once he was being smart in the wrong direction. "I'm not trying to damage the suit," he said, looking casually around. Three of the four techs who'd come out with them were standing around him about an arm's length away; the fourth, the one holding the obedience-suit trigger, was facing him from about twice that distance. Beyond them a pair of Zhirrzh had left the group by the Mrach ship and were heading toward him, those compact flashbulb guns of theirs hanging loosely in their hands.
It was now or never. Turning his back to the Zhirrzh with the trigger, Pheylan took a step away -
And suddenly his knees buckled beneath him, pitching him face first into the dirt with a thud. A thud, and a spray of water from the saturated jumpsuit.
A spray of water that turned the dirt where he'd landed into instant mud. Coating the entire front of his obedience suit... including the sensor disks embedded there.
Thrr-gilag made a strangled sound in his throat; but whether he thought his prisoner had hurt himself or whether he'd suddenly realized what had just happened Pheylan never knew. Before anyone could react further, Pheylan rolled onto his back, leaped to his feet, and charged at the Zhirrzh tech holding the obedience-suit trigger.
The other was backing desperately away, firing the trigger uselessly at him, as Pheylan caught up with him. With one hand he grabbed the Zhirrzh's arm, wrenching the trigger out of his grasp with the other and stuffing it down the front of the obedience suit. Yanking the alien toward him, he swung him bodily around, bent him over at the waist, and jammed his head and neck into a football-style grip between the magnet rings under his left armpit.
An instant later the other four Zhirrzh were on him, clutching at his arms and head as they tried to free their trapped comrade. But their thin arms and double-thumbed hands were no match for human musculature. Pheylan swung his shoulders and his prisoner at them, shaking and throwing them away from him.
All but one of them. Grabbing Thrr-gilag's arm, Pheylan swung the Zhirrzh into shield position in front of him. "Call them off," he snapped, releasing the arm and shifting quickly to a grip across Thrr-gilag's neck. "Those two Zhirrzh. Call them off or I'll break your neck."
"Not allow escape," Thrr-gilag said, his voice gone suddenly high-pitched. "Zhirrzh not allow escape."
"That's entirely up to you," Pheylan bit out. The two Zhirrzh were still coming, their flashbulb guns raised into firing position now. "But they either let me go or they kill me," he told Thrr-gilag. "Those are the only options they've got left." He gave the other's neck a sharp squeeze for emphasis. "And if they kill me, you two will go too. Your decision. Make it fast."
Clutching his two captives tightly against him, Pheylan started walking toward the Mrach ship. He had the full attention of that whole group now, and two gray sticks had joined the flashbulb guns that were pointed in his direction. Pheylan kept walking, feeling utterly naked behind Thrr-gilag and wishing now that the slightly taller Svv-selic hadn't been demoted from spokesman position. Holding the Zhirrzh tech upright instead of under his arm would give him a better shield; but the minute he did that, he'd be open to the spare obedience-suit trigger they undoubtedly had stashed away somewhere. This way they would have to sacrifice the tech if they wanted to stop him. He could only hope the tech had lots of friends here.
The two closest Zhirrzh guards had stopped, their flashbulb guns still targeting him. "Tell them to put their weapons down," Pheylan hissed to Thrr-gilag, looking slightly away from the weapons and keeping his right eye tightly closed. "Now."
Thrr-gilag took a deep breath. "Kasar!" he called.
And in reply both flashbulb guns went off together.
Pheylan stopped in his tracks, keeping a firm grip on his prisoners as he blinked hard against the double purple blob blocking the view from his left eye. It didn't seem as bad this time as it had been in his cell, possibly because he'd been looking away. Ahead, he could hear and dimly see the two Zhirrzh running toward him. He waited, shifting his balance onto his left leg; and as they reached him, he opened his right eye and kicked the lead Zhirrzh hard in the torso.
The alien hit the dirt like a dropped sack of cement, throwing a cloud of red dust into the air. The other Zhirrzh gasped something, swinging his flashbulb gun up again as he tried to brake to an emergency stop.
Neither effort proved successful. Pheylan's second kick caught him the same place as his partner, dropping him neatly to the ground beside him.
"That wasn't very smart," Pheylan said, giving Thrr-gilag's neck another squeeze. "I could have killed you right then, you know."
"I know."
"Good. Now let's try it again, shall we? And get it right this time. Otherwise I may have to kill you, this tech here, and all the rest of that group over there."
"The Zhirrzh right," Thrr-gilag said. "You predators."
"You're damn right we are," Pheylan agreed. "It's up to you what happens here. What's it going to be?"
He could feel Thrr-gilag take a deep breath. "Shalirr i crr'arrea mazzasprr akrr'trr i parrsavva crri," he called. "Parr've krrti."
Ahead, the gray sticks seemed to waver. "Krrti svvarr?" one of the Zhirrzh called.
"Parr've krrti," Thrr-gilag repeated.
They kept at it for another half-dozen exchanges. Pheylan resumed walking toward the ship, his right eye closed again in case they decided to try that stunt a second time. The three Zhirrzh who guarded the white pyramid had come out of their domes now, he saw, but they didn't seem to be making any move to come join in the festivities.
And then, to Pheylan's mild surprise, the weapons pointed at him lowered to the ground. "So what's the decision?" he demanded.
"You allowed to leave," Thrr-gilag said. "They agree."
Pheylan smiled grimly. Sure they did. He'd seen far too much of the Zhirrzh to believe that one for a minute. They had something up their sleeves, all right, something that would probably involve a brief fire fight in the upper atmosphere. But that was all right. Short odds or not, once in the air he would at least have a fighting chance.
The group by the Mrach ship had moved a respectful distance back by the time Pheylan and his two unwilling shields reached the landing ramp. "You leave us here?" Thrr-gilag asked as Pheylan awkwardly backed the three of them up the ramp and into the ship.
"That depends on whether I can find something to tie you up with," Pheylan said, glancing quickly both ways down the corridor. There was no one in sight. Sidling over to the ha
tchway control, he jabbed it with an elbow. The panel slid down; and as it did, he let go of the Zhirrzh tech and gave him a hard shove toward it. The other stumbled, off balance, and hit the ramp. Pheylan got a glimpse of him beginning to roll down it as the hatchway sealed.
"Lie down," Pheylan ordered Thrr-gilag, pushing him toward the floor. "On your face. Stay there or I'll break your neck."
Silently, Thrr-gilag obeyed. Keeping an eye on him, Pheylan stripped off the obedience suit and used the sleeves to tie Thrr-gilag's arms behind him. "All right," he said, hauling the Zhirrzh back to his feet. "Let's go."
The cockpit was at the end of the corridor. "Sit here," Pheylan ordered, pushing Thrr-gilag down into one of the seats and using the legs of the obedience suit to tie his legs together. The rising sun was shining brightly nearly straight ahead through the canopy, its light glittering off the edges of the strangely curved Mrach control panel.
A canopy, like his glass-walled cell, that the Zhirrzh lasers would be able to shoot through. But there was nothing Pheylan could do about that except try to get out of here before they got their sharpshooters into position. Mentally crossing his fingers, keeping his head down, he climbed into the control seat and keyed the engines.
They came on with a muffled roar. Pheylan studied the instruments, trying to dredge up that unit on Mrach ships from his memory. The injection feed control... there? Tentatively, he eased it forward, and as he did so the roar beneath him changed pitch and tone into the familiar twittering drone.
So far so good. Shift to preflight: check. Activate stardrive and run internal-operations monitor: check. Confirm Icefire ducts in lift position....
There was a faint sound behind him. Pheylan looked up, started to turn around -
And jerked back against the contoured cushions. Floating over the control-board displays, less than a meter in front of his face, was a full-size image of a Zhirrzh.
Pheylan gasped, the shock of it freezing his muscles as effectively as a jolt of electric current. Pale white, insubstantial yet sculpted in exquisite detail, the image hovered half in and half out of the cockpit like something from one of the ghost stories Aric had loved to tell as a child. The mouth moved, and as if from a great distance he could hear what sounded like Zhirrzh speech -
And then, abruptly, something jabbed like a hot needle into his right shoulder.
He spun around, the paralysis broken. Thrr-gilag stood at his side, his tongue just retracting again into his mouth, the part of the obedience suit that had restrained his legs hanging in tatters around his waist.
And on Pheylan's shoulder a drop of blood had appeared. "Damn!" he snarled, spinning out of the seat and grabbing for Thrr-gilag with both hands.
Or rather, trying to grab him. To his bewilderment his right arm had suddenly become inexplicably heavy. He tried again to force it upward; but even as it dropped limply to his side, he stumbled and dropped to his knees on the hard deck.
He barely felt the impact. His whole body was going numb... and in front of him Thrr-gilag's image was beginning to waver. "Damn," he murmured.
The image faded away... and with his last thought Pheylan wondered what death would be like.
And whether the men and women of the Kinshasa whom he'd failed would be there. And would be able to forgive him.
"There's no doubt at all, Commander," Max's voice said in Aric's ear. "I've run three different samples of neutrino and gamma emissions. There's definitely a Mrach ship down there. One moment: I'm now getting tachyon emissions. Most likely a stardrive self-monitor."
"A Mrach ship," Quinn murmured. "Interesting. Does he have lift yet?"
"No," Max said. "Engine emissions are still at preflight levels."
"Let me know the minute he goes up," Quinn said. "Clipper? What do you think?"
"Oh, we're going in, all right," Clipper said. "The only question is whether we go cold or risk letting Max fire up the active sensors first."
"They must know we're coming," Dazzler put in. "That last static bomb is still burning out there."
"Knowing we might be coming is a far cry from our setting off a flare in their faces," Clipper countered. "Max, have you spotted anything down there besides that cleared area?"
"Not so far," Max said. "I'm still searching. I do have a good scrub of the cleared area now."
"Pipe it down," Quinn said.
"How does it look?" Aric asked, staring at the half-darkened planetscape stretched out above them.
"There's not much there," Quinn told him. "Two linked-hexagon buildings that look a lot like the way the Conquerors build their ships. Three or four smaller structures in between them... make that a definite four structures. Looks like one of them might be another of your screaming pyramids. A good-sized landing strip, with one small ship on it. Mrach design, all right. The whole area's surrounded about a kilometer away by a fence. Could be some people around the ship, too - the compound's near the terminator line, and it looks like we've got some narrow shadows, but the fueler's telescope isn't good enough to resolve anything that small."
Aric clenched a hand into a fist. "So are we going down?"
"Commander, the Mrach ship has shut down its engines," Max said before Quinn could answer.
"Malfunction?" Clipper asked.
"Nothing I could detect from the emissions," Max said.
"Someone must have changed his mind," Bookmaker suggested.
"Or else they've spotted us," Clipper said.
"Our cue, either way," Quinn decided. "Combat code red; let's do it."
The clamps released with a jolt, and the fueler fell away above him; and suddenly Aric was jammed hard into his seat as Quinn threw full power to the drive. "How soon?" he called over the roar from behind him.
"Five minutes," Quinn called back. "Maybe less. Hold tough - it's going to get a little hot back there."
"I can handle it," Aric gritted. Already he could feel the air heating up around him as the Counterpunch sliced through the upper atmosphere at near-meteor speed. The drive was a violent roar in his ears, drowning out the pounding pulse he could feel but not hear. Directly ahead, past Quinn's helmet, the dark of space met the dark section of the planet, giving him nothing to look at but blackness; only later did it occur to him that Quinn would have deliberately chosen that vector so as to hit the Conqueror compound with the rising sun at their backs.
"Maestro, we've got visual," Dazzler's voice came suddenly. "A definite on aliens down there. A whole group of - "
"We're drawing fire," Paladin cut him off. "Medium-intensity lasers - probably light arms."
"Target and destroy," Quinn ordered. "All fighters, go to - "
"There he is!" Dazzler cut him off. "Maestro, we've got him!"
"Go to laser link, damn it," Quinn snapped. "All ships."
The voices went silent. "Quinn?" Aric murmured.
"It's him," Quinn confirmed tightly. "It's Commander Cavanagh. He's being carried out of the Mrach ship." He hesitated. "Looks like he's unconscious."
Aric's heart seemed to freeze. "Unconscious? Or dead?"
"We'll find out in thirty seconds," Quinn told him grimly. "Hang on; we're going in."
The Counterpunch dipped suddenly, throwing Aric into a half second's worth of free fall, then pulled into a tight turn with gee forces that left him gasping for breath. Above the roar of the engine he could hear the sputtering bursts of precision antipersonnel guns. Another surge of gee force as the Counterpunch's nose swung up - something slammed into the underside of the fighter as the engine roar suddenly cut back -
And above him the canopy slid back. "He's there to the right," Quinn shouted. "Get going."
Aric ripped off his helmet and scrambled up and over the cockpit side, throwing a quick look around as his feet found the top of the flowmetal ladder. Twenty meters away was the Mrach ship; ahead and to the right was one of the two complexes Quinn had mentioned. Overhead, three of the Corvines were screaming tight circles over the area, spitting death at anything
that moved.
And lying sprawled on the ground five meters away was a naked human form.
Pheylan.
Later Aric would never fully remember the leap to the ground and the mad dash across the eye of the war zone, or the task of hoisting Pheylan up over his shoulder, or the even more formidable task getting the two of them up the ladder and into the cockpit. Only one solid memory would remain from those few seconds: the terrifying coldness of his brother's skin.
And then the canopy closed over them, and the Counterpunch was again clawing its way through the air. "How is he?" Quinn called.
"Not good," Aric gritted back, struggling to reach around Pheylan's legs to get to the small medical pouch behind Quinn's seat.
"Get the diagnostic band out of the medic pouch," Quinn said.
"I'm trying," Aric snapped back, finally getting the pouch open. His left arm was pinned beneath Pheylan's back, but the band was designed for one-handed operation, and a few seconds later he had it secured just above Pheylan's knee. "Okay," he said, plugging the lead into the jack beside the pouch. "Max?"
"Heartbeat is slow but regular," the computer reported. "Blood pressure and nerve function are similarly low."
"What's wrong with him?" Aric asked.
"Unknown as yet," Max said. "There are several unidentified factors in his blood, but some are undoubtedly from alien foodstuffs. One moment. Indication of a mild poison in his bloodstream."
Aric looked down at Pheylan's right shoulder, and the slow oozing of blood from a small puncture wound there. "I can see the injection point," he said. "Should I try the snakebite technique?"
There was a short pause. With his free hand Aric dug through the medic pouch, searching for a knife or field scalpel or something else sharp and wishing desperately that Melinda were here instead of him. If it came to deliberately cutting into his brother's skin, even to save his life -
"That won't be necessary," Max said, relief evident in his voice. "His vital signs have bottomed out and are beginning to come back. Is there a general stimulant injector in the kit?"
"It's the bright-orange one," Quinn said. "You know how to use it?"
