Conquerors 3 - Conquerors' Legacy

by Timothy Zahn

  "We see what kind of reception the Avuirli get," Kolchin said. With his left hand he lowered his backpack to the ground; with his right he drew his flechette pistol from beneath his jacket and clicked off the safety. "We also see how good your memory for faces is."

  Cavanagh grimaced as he turned on the binoculars and held them up to his eyes. He'd met Bokamba only once, back at the Parliament's Copperhead hearings. Whether he could recognize the man now, several years later, was going to be problematic.

  The three Avuirli were about three quarters of the way down the street, approaching the house at the end. "They're almost there," he told Kolchin, adjusting the light-amplification contrast slightly. "Piltariab must really be anxious to get there - he's practically running."

  "Interesting," Kolchin said thoughtfully. "I can't remember ever seeing an Avuire run before."

  Cavanagh frowned, searching his memory. Now that Kolchin mentioned it, he couldn't either. Avuirli were built for strength, not speed. "You're right," he agreed, an odd feeling starting to twist through his stomach. "What could Bokamba have said to him to spark that much enthusiasm in coming back?"

  Kolchin never had a chance to answer. At that moment, from behind them in the alleyway, came a quiet voice, barely audible over the noise from the nearby shops. "Hold it steady, both of you. Kolchin, lose the gun."

  Cavanagh turned his face away from the binoculars and looked sideways across the alley at Kolchin. The young bodyguard hadn't moved, nor had his expression changed. But the tendons of his gun hand were suddenly pressing visibly through the skin. Preparing for violent action... "No," Cavanagh murmured urgently. "Not now. Not here."

  For a long moment he thought Kolchin was going to try it anyway. Then, to his relief, the other let out a long, strangled-sounding breath and lowered his hand from the garbage bin, letting the flechette pistol drop to the ground. Lifting his hands shoulder high, he turned slowly around. Swallowing hard, Cavanagh did the same.

  Brigadier Petr Bronski was standing alone three meters away in the middle of the alley, holding a small flechette pistol in a no-nonsense marksman's grip. The gun, and his full attention, were fixed on Kolchin. "Smart lad," Bronski said approvingly. "You know the rest of the routine: hands on top of your head, fingers laced together. You too, Cavanagh."

  "So it was a trap, after all," Kolchin said as he and Cavanagh complied.

  "No, it was just me playing a hunch," Bronski said. "Nice to know I've still got it. Just kick the gun over this way."

  "What kind of hunch were you playing?" Cavanagh asked as Kolchin complied, sending his flechette pistol clattering across the uneven flagstones toward Bronski.

  "That you'd gone to ground on Granparra," Bronski said, taking a step forward and stooping down to pick up the gun. A loose paving stone rocked under his feet as he straightened up again. "I was able to locate and pull a copy of the message the Klyveress ci Yyatoor sent to your son Aric on Edo."

  Cavanagh frowned. "She sent Aric a message? What was in it?"

  "She wanted him to collect some electronics modules and bring them to her on Phormbi." Reaching under his jacket at the small of his back, Bronski produced a set of wristcuffs and tossed them onto the ground at Cavanagh's feet. "Put them on Kolchin," he instructed. "Hands behind his back, of course."

  "I don't understand what a message from Klyveress has to do with anything," Cavanagh said, his mind racing as he picked up the wristcuffs and crossed the alley to Kolchin. No backup had yet appeared - could Bronski really have come there alone? If so, they might still have a chance of getting away.

  But only up to the point where Kolchin's hands were cuffed. After that their chances dropped nearly to zero. Somehow Cavanagh had to find a way to stall the completion of that order.

  Or find a way to fake it.

  "Like I said, it was a hunch," Bronski said. "We had an alert out all over the Commonwealth watching for the Mrach fighter you stole on Mra-mig. When it didn't turn up anywhere, I figured you must have talked the ci Yyatoor into trading ships with you, which meant you were going to owe her something."

  "That's it exactly," Cavanagh acknowledged, pausing beside Kolchin and looking at Bronski. "She insisted I send her some command/switching modules in exchange for the ship she gave me. How did you know?"

  "With Yycromae there's always a quid pro quo." Bronski waved his gun slightly toward Kolchin. "Come on, get those cuffs on."

  "Only I haven't been able to send them," Cavanagh said, stepping around behind Kolchin and fastening one ring of the wristcuffs onto his left wrist. Standing behind Kolchin this way, he was partially out of Bronski's sight... and unbeknownst to the brigadier, he still had Kolchin's backup flechette pistol hidden beneath his jacket. Should he try to ease it out and slip it into Kolchin's belt, where he could get to it with his cuffed hands?

  But even if he was able to do all that without Bronski's catching him at it, what then? Could Kolchin get the drop on Bronski and persuade him to surrender? Because if not, the only other option at that point would be to shoot him, and there was no way Cavanagh could justify shooting a Peacekeeper officer who was only doing his job. "We've been here since leaving Phormbi," he added, hoping to keep Bronski talking as he pulled Kolchin's hands down behind his back.

  "Which is why she sent that message to your son," Bronski said. "If you'd sent the modules like she wanted, she wouldn't have needed to do that. To me that said you'd gone to ground someplace where you couldn't get to a CavTronics supply house." He shrugged. "Granparra seemed the most likely spot."

  "Especially when you found out that Quinn and Aric had been in touch with Wing Commander Bokamba," Cavanagh nodded, positioning the second wristcuff ring around Kolchin's right wrist and trying desperately to figure out how to make it look secure without actually locking it in place. But he couldn't see anywhere else for the locking hook to go. "How long ago did you and he set up this little charade?"

  "What charade is that?"

  Cavanagh paused, frowning over Kolchin's shoulder at Bronski. The brigadier was eyeing him, apparently in genuine puzzlement. "You know what charade. We had Piltariab take a message to Bokamba three days ago. He sent back a note that we should stay off the island at least two more days."

  Bronski's eyes flicked past Cavanagh's shoulder. "Bokamba's not here, Cavanagh," he said. "He was called up to the reserves nearly a month ago."

  Something cold shivered along Cavanagh's spine. "But Piltariab said - "

  And abruptly all the pieces suddenly fell together in his mind. A trap, all right, but not one orchestrated by Bronski. A fake Bokamba had been set up as a lure, set up by someone who had manipulated Piltariab so well that the Avuire had been impatiently eager to bring him and Kolchin to see him. So eager, in fact, that he'd gone out of his way to persuade two others of his species to join them.

  And there was only one group of beings who, expecting humans to walk into their trap, would also have known how to mesmerize a simple Avuirlian sap miner so thoroughly. The same group of beings who, now that Cavanagh knew about their subtle war against humanity, might have felt it worth this much effort to have him silenced.

  The Mrachanis.

  Cavanagh took a deep breath. "Brigadier - "

  And suddenly, from directly behind him, came a blood-chilling roar.

  Cavanagh dropped the loose end of the wristcuffs and spun around. Standing beyond the garbage bins at the near end of the alley was the squat, meter-wide figure of a Bhurt, his arms spread wide in challenge. One of the same Bhurtala, if Cavanagh remembered the facial stripe pattern correctly, who had threatened Bronski in the Mrapiratta Hotel back on Mra-mig.

  The Bhurt roared again, a vicious and probably insulting taunt in his own language. Then, moving with the deliberate slowness of a bully who knows he has the physical edge on his opponents, he started toward them.

  13

  "Out of the way!" Bronski snapped. "Cavanagh - !"

  Cavanagh needed no encouragement. He threw himself back across t
he alley, slamming his shoulder against the brick wall with jarring force. Rolling to put his back to the wall, splaying both hands to the sides for stability, he risked a quick look back at Bronski.

  The brigadier's left hand had snaked under his jacket, emerging with a new flechette-gun clip. Cavanagh caught a glimpse of bright-red cartridges, started to turn back to the approaching Bhurt -

  And jerked his head back again as a movement caught the corner of his eye. At the far end of the alley a shadowy figure had appeared, its black garb silhouetted against the only marginally lighter gloom of the alley, moving swiftly toward Bronski's back, the sounds of its footsteps masked by the roars of the first Bhurt and the shouts and shrieks of scattering pedestrians.

  And with a stab of horror Cavanagh understood. The first Bhurt - the one moving slowly and brazenly toward them - was merely a feint. The second one was the real attack.

  And with his back to the oncoming threat, his gun and attention pointed the wrong direction, Bronski was about to die.

  "Look out!" Cavanagh shouted to him, clawing frantically beneath his jacket for the flechette pistol hidden there.

  Frantically, but uselessly. His shout had caught Bronski's attention, and on the brigadier's face he could see the sudden realization there was danger behind him. But even as he started to spin around, Cavanagh knew it was too late. The Bhurt was coming down the alley like a charging rhino, and there was no possible way Bronski was going to be able to complete his turn and get a stopping shot off before the alien trampled him into the broken flagstones of the alley. At the very edge of his vision Cavanagh saw Kolchin throw up his arms as if in panic and then double over at the waist. Vaguely seen, mostly imagined, something seemed to flicker through the air past Bronski's ear -

  And suddenly the hilt and three quarters of Kolchin's big split-blade knife appeared, protruding from the Bhurt's upper left leg.

  The alien bellowed, his torso jerking to the left, the rhythm of his running thrown violently off by the blow. He got two more steps, arms flailing like windmill blades as he fought to regain his balance. But the impact of the knife, plus the uneven footing, proved too much for him. An instant later, with a crash that shook the whole alley, he slammed full-length onto the ground. Bellowing again, he shoved himself halfway up from his prone position, got his feet under him -

  And then Bronski's flechette pistol barked, and the alien's upper right torso exploded in a brilliant blaze of flame.

  The alien convulsed, his angry bellow abruptly turning to a scream of rage as he struggled up into a crouch. Bronski fired again and again, the Bhurt seeming to dissolve into multiple bursts of flame and smoke and blood. But the defiant screams continued, and through the smoke Cavanagh could see him still struggling mindlessly to get the rest of the way to his feet and kill the humans who were doing this to him. If Bronski's gun ran out of explosive cartridges, he might still make it.

  And then, to Cavanagh's shock, an echoing scream came from behind him.

  Somehow, in the eternity of the past few seconds, he'd forgotten about the other Bhurt.

  He twisted around. The first alien, the failure of their clever little subterfuge having finally penetrated its thick skull, had abandoned the effort at subtlety and was lurching to the attack.

  "Bronski!" Kolchin called.

  The brigadier didn't even turn around. Still blasting away at the second Bhurt, he snapped his free hand up underneath his extended right arm, tossing Kolchin's flechette pistol toward him. Kolchin caught the weapon and twisted around, the gun blazing into action almost before it was fully settled into his hand.

  But it was an effort Cavanagh knew was doomed to failure. Even with the assistance of the running Bhurt's forward momentum, Kolchin's thrown knife had barely managed to penetrate the alien's thick hide. Standard flechette loads would do no better, and that was all Kolchin's gun was loaded with.

  The Bhurt knew it, too, or else was too infuriated to care. Crossing his massive arms in front of his face, making no effort to evade the steel darts collecting on his arms and torso, he kept coming.

  "Cavanagh!" Bronski shouted.

  Cavanagh turned back, dimly noticing the fact that the rapid-fire explosions had ceased. Bronski was beckoning sharply toward him, the second Bhurt a gory mess, finally unmoving, at his feet. "This way," the brigadier shouted. "Move it!"

  Cavanagh pushed off the wall and ran toward him. "Kolchin, come on."

  "Go with Bronski," Kolchin ordered, still firing his useless darts at the approaching Bhurt. "Move, damn it."

  There was no time to argue. Cavanagh reached Bronski's side; and then the brigadier had a grip on his arm and was pulling him down the alley. "Where are we going?"

  "Away from here," Bronski said. There was a crash behind them - "Don't look," the brigadier ordered.

  "But Kolchin - " Cavanagh said, resisting Bronski's grip as he tried to turn around.

  "I said don't look," Bronski snapped, jerking his arm hard enough to hurt. "You just concentrate on your running and hope whoever set this up didn't put in any backstops."

  Apparently, they hadn't. Cavanagh and Bronski reached the end of the alley without incident, emerging into a brightly lit but strangely deserted market street. "You can always tell a backwater culture," Bronski said, tugging Cavanagh sharply to the left. "They don't stand around gawking at trouble - they get out of sight and stay there. This way."

  Halfway down the block they reached a narrow stairway on their left, wedged between two shop fronts. "All the way to the top," Bronski told him, pushing him into the shadowed entryway and pausing to pull a fresh flechette clip from beneath his jacket. "Go on, I'll catch up."

  Breathing hard, leg muscles starting to burn with the exertion, Cavanagh headed up. The stairway was uncomfortably dark, its gloom relieved only by a dim light plate at each floor's landing. He had passed the second floor and was on his way to the third when he heard Bronski start up the stairs; had just made it to the fourth and top floor when the brigadier caught up with him. "What now?" Cavanagh asked, gasping for breath.

  "We wait," Bronski said. He was breathing a little hard, too. "There's an empty apartment up here I can get us into - I moved in yesterday to see if you'd show up at Bokamba's place. But we need to know first if they saw us come in here."

  "They?" Cavanagh repeated, frowning. "I thought you killed one."

  "I did," Bronski said grimly. "It turns out there were two others waiting in the wings. Luckily not at the end we left by - they were probably ready with a pincer movement near Bokamba's place. I saw the three of them come charging out of the alley just before I headed up here."

  Cavanagh braced himself. "What about Kolchin?"

  Bronski looked away. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I didn't see him."

  The dim light of the landing seemed to become a little darker. "I understand," he said quietly.

  "Don't go jumping to any conclusions," Bronski warned, his voice oddly gruff. "He could have made it out of the alley just behind us and been out of sight the other direction before we were able to turn around and look. He was a Peacekeeper commando once, and you never count a Peacekeeper commando out until you've retrieved a body."

  Cavanagh nodded, trying hard to believe him. Kolchin deserved far more than just a brief, passing thought, but there was no time right now for anything else. No time to mourn him properly. "Shouldn't you be calling someone for help?"

  "Like who?"

  "Like the police, maybe? Keeping the peace is what they're here for, isn't it?"

  Bronski snorted under his breath. "Not when it involves NorCoord citizens getting beat on by aliens. Not on Granparra, anyway. As long as they don't see their own people or property as being in danger, they'll probably stay out of it. Probably be cheering for the Bhurtala."

  An unpleasant chill ran up Cavanagh's back. He'd long ago accepted the fact that putting up with a certain amount of resentment toward NorCoord was one of the factors involved in doing business around the Common
wealth. Apparently, the feelings were running a lot deeper than mere resentment. "What about the Myrmidon Weapons Platform, then? They ought to have the necessary firepower to deal with a group of Bhurtala."

  "Sure they do," Bronski said. "Problem is that with the Parra vine blocking a straight-line drop, it'd take them a minimum of an hour to get here. Too late to do us any good." He gestured with the barrel of his pistol toward Cavanagh's jacket. "I don't suppose you happen to have any explosive rounds in that gun of yours."

  Cavanagh had completely forgotten about his flechette pistol. "No," he said, feeling a guilty ache as he pulled it out. Everything had happened so quickly down there in the alley, but he should at least have been able to get a couple of shots off at the Bhurtala. It probably wouldn't have made any difference; but then again, it might. He would never know now. "I only have standard-load flechettes. Kolchin used up all his explosive rounds back on the mainland."

  "Figured as much," Bronski grunted. "Let's hope they didn't see us - "

  He broke off, his hand raised suddenly for silence. Cavanagh froze, listening.

  They could hear the sound of heavy, clumping footsteps echoing up through the stairway. The footsteps stopped; then, abruptly, came the splintering crash of a breaking door. Someone screamed, someone else shouted, the verbal uproar mixing in with the sounds of running feet and more of the clumping footsteps. The footsteps came to a halt, and there was a second crash.

  Bronski swore. "So much for that hope," he muttered. "They're checking all the apartments. Means they know we're here."

  Cavanagh felt his stomach tighten. Trapped here on the top floor. Might as well have been gift wrapped. "What do we do?"

  Bronski nodded toward the corner of the landing and a rusty ladder leading to an equally rusty ceiling trapdoor. "We keep going."

  It was obvious at first glance that the trapdoor hadn't been opened in years; equally obvious that it wasn't going to be opened now without creating considerable noise in the process. But Bronski was ahead of the problem, waiting until the Bhurtala two floors below were in the process of breaking down the next door before forcing the trap up against its protesting hinges. A minute later both men were on the roof.