Conquerors' Pride

17

"We can't leave yet," she said, trying not to flinch before that glare. "The Cavatina's only going to be a few minutes ahead of that Conqueror force. If I don't warn them away as soon as they mesh in, they're dead."

"We can chase them away without your help," Holloway said, sounding fractionally less angry. "They'll be fine. Now get on that ship and get out of here."

Melinda shook her head. "He won't listen to you, Colonel," she said. "I know my father. He knows I'm here, and he'll argue the point with you. You won't be able to convince him fast enough."

Holloway exhaled noisily. "Look, Doctor, I understand your concern. But you're worrying about nothing. Yes, they're only a couple of minutes apart; but the odds of their both picking the same area to mesh in are practically nonexistent. Your father will see what's happening and scramble out of here."

"Can you guarantee that?"

"Of course not," Holloway shot back. "I also can't guarantee that they'll mesh in far enough away for you and McPhee to get past them if I let you wait around here any longer. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be."

Melinda took a deep breath. The logic, unfortunately, was irrefutable. And it left her with only one option. "Then let McPhee go," she said. "I'll stay."

Holloway's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I'll stay here," she repeated, trying to ignore the painful thudding in her chest. "Chances are you're going to need all the medical expertise you can get. I'm a doctor, and I'm offering my services."

"In case you've forgotten, you're also a prisoner," he pointed out.

"You've placed Dorcas under martial law. You can temporarily suspend the charges if you want to."

His eyes locked on to hers like twin laser scalpels. "You understand what you're offering?" he asked.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Which isn't to say I'm thrilled by the whole idea."

For a half dozen of her accelerated heartbeats he continued to study her. "I'd be worried about you if you were," he said at last, pulling out his comm. "All right, you've got yourself a deal. Duggen? Cavanagh's staying here. Tell McPhee to seal up and get moving." He got an acknowledgment and shoved the comm back into its belt pouch. "Come on."

The landing area was an anthill of furious activity, with Peacekeepers shoving last-minute civilian survival bags into aircar storage compartments as the civilians themselves crowded aboard. Melinda watched their faces as Holloway eased his car through the chaos toward the command complex, marveling that amid all the haste she was seeing no signs of hysteria or panic. On the contrary, everyone seemed grimly ready for whatever was on its way. "They seem well prepared," she commented.

"We've had a couple of weeks," Holloway reminded her. "Those who didn't want to stay left a long time ago."

"How many are left?"

"More than I like. About twenty-five thousand, out of an original population of forty-seven."

Melinda glanced up at the clear blue sky, wishing irrationally that there were some clouds up there to hide them from unfriendly eyes. "Where are you taking them?"

"There's a narrow canyon in the mountains about seventy kilometers east of the settlement," he said. "It's got a river for water and about as much shelter as we're going to find anywhere nearby. We've prepped it as best we could in the time we had."

"What about food and medical supplies?"

"We've got everything we could pack up and move out there. The question will be how well we can defend it if the Conquerors decide they want to root us out."

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 the 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 few—"

"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.

"Colonel?" Wei whispered urgently.

"Hold your fire," Holloway murmured. "Maybe they'll be happy with wrecking the aircar and go away."

Melinda swallowed, jolted back to the deadly realities of the situation. These weren't just a new species of self-starfaring aliens come here for her to examine.

These were the Conquerors. They were here to kill.

Four more of the aliens had joined the first two, the newcomers waiting beside the craft as the first pair picked their way across the rubble to the side of the aircar. They looked inside, and through the pulsating wind from the rotors Melinda could hear them saying something. An amplified voice answered back. "Well, they know we got out," Holloway murmured beside her. "Let's see how badly they want to find us."

The answer was quick and decisive. Within a few seconds the vehicle had lifted smoothly back into the sky, rising ten meters before coming to a halt. Fanning out, the six Conquerors on the ground started toward the trees where Holloway had thrown the decoy disk.

"Shouldn't we open fire?" Wei asked tensely, his knuckles tight where he gripped his assault gun.

"All in good time," Holloway told him, squinting upward at the hovering vehicle. "You and I will try to take out the copter. Set for full antiarmor, then whistle Crane and Bremmer that they're to hit the ground troops when we open fire."

"Yes, sir," Wei said, lifting his whistle and launching into a short series of blasts.

The Conquerors stopped, dropping down into half-crouched stances, their heads darting back and forth as they searched for the source of the sound. Melinda tensed, but the odd pitch of the whistle seemed to defeat their efforts to locate it. Wei finished his message, and for a moment the Conquerors remained where they were—again, Melinda thought, almost as if deliberately inviting attack. But again Holloway held his fire, and after a moment they straightened up and continued their cautious march toward the trees.

"Sir?" Wei hissed nervously.

"Get ready," Holloway said. He threw a glance at Melinda, and she was struck by the underlying calmness in his face. "Brace yourself, Doctor; this is going to be noisy. Wei, on zero. Three, two, one, zero."

The two assault guns erupted in unison, shattering the quiet of the forest with the vicious stutter-bark of explosive shells cycled together with what sounded like small missiles. An instant later the sound was echoed from across the woods as the other Peacekeepers and civilians opened fire.

Melinda pressed closer to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut, cringing as the multiple thunderclaps of explosions pounded against her ears and head. Through the noise she could faintly hear shouts; through her closed eyelids she could see flickers and flashes of brilliant light—

And then there was a violent crash that picked her up and slammed her to the ground again.

And silence.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes and lifted her head a few centimeters. Sprawled on the ground in her line of sight were the unmoving forms of the nearest Conquerors, their jumpsuits spattered with very humanlike red blood. Beyond them the crumpled form of the copter lay canted and burning against the ground perhaps thirty meters behind their wrecked aircar. Crane and Bremmer, along with the three civilians, were making their way across the open land toward the copter. "Is it over?" she asked, not realizing until she said it how inane the question probably sounded.

But if Holloway agreed with that assessment, he didn't say so. "For the moment," he said. "No, stay put—we're holding backstop position. You hurt?"

"Just a little shaken," she said, coughing on the words. The air was thick with acrid smoke from the explosions and fire, burning her nose and lungs. "What happens now?"

"If they're all dead, we head for the canyon," Holloway told her. "They might have backup on the way; and if they didn't before, they probably do now."

Melinda looked over at the pressure bandage on Wei's sprained ankle. "It's going to be a long walk."

"The alternatives aren't any more pleasant," Holloway countered. "Keep quiet, and watch."

Across the clearing the Peacekeepers and civilians had reached the downed Conqueror copter. Much of the smoke had blown away now, and Melinda could see dozens of what looked like thin cracks crisscrossing the milky-white surface. One of the Peacekeepers—the pilot Bremmer, Melinda tentatively identified him—fired a short burst at the side of the craft, blowing the door off. "Take it careful," Holloway muttered under his breath. "Slow and careful." Lowering his assault gun slightly, Bremmer stepped to the hatchway and eased his head in for a look inside—

And with a shout jumped back away from the copter as a Conqueror staggered out.

Melinda gasped. But even as the Conqueror grabbed the edge of the doorway and pulled himself upright, Bremmer took a step forward and jabbed the muzzle of his assault gun hard into the alien's upper torso. The Conqueror might have gasped—Melinda couldn't tell for sure—and staggered backward. One of the civilians jumped in behind him, bringing his weapon over the alien's head into a choke hold against his neck. The Conqueror reached up to the gun, but for all his obvious straining was unable to budge it.

"Watch it," Holloway muttered. "Real careful. Get him on the ground before you search him." Across the way Bremmer handed his weapon to Crane and stepped up to the alien—

And in that instant the Conqueror struck.

Melinda didn't see clearly what happened, only that Bremmer abruptly jerked back and to the side, his neck erupting into a spray of blood as he fell to the ground.

"Get away from him!" Holloway shouted, snapping up his assault gun.

But too late. Even as someone screamed—even as Crane dropped the second weapon that was encumbering him—the Conqueror twisted his head to the side beneath the pressure against his neck... and this time Melinda had a horrifyingly clear view of the attack. From the alien's mouth something knifelike lanced out, slicing cleanly through the neck of the man behind him. There was another scream, this one gurgling horribly, as he collapsed into a heap. The Conqueror grabbed for the assault gun now sliding loosely down his torso—

And then Crane opened fire, and the Conqueror seemed to explode into fragments and a spray of blood.

Melinda stared at the scene, her whole body shaking violently, her stomach twisting and sick as it hadn't been since her first year of medical school. She'd seen the documentaries on the wars the Peacekeepers had been involved in over the past thirty-seven years—the wars and the police actions and the pacifications. But neither that nor her medical training had prepared her for this. This was dangerous, bloody, and real.

And in the deepest core of her being she understood, perhaps for the first time, that she was truly and genuinely in the middle of a war.

She took a shuddering breath. Yes, she was in a war. But she was also a doctor in a war, with all the responsibilities that went along with that. Including her promise to Holloway. "I'm going over there," she said, standing up. "There might be something I can do."

"Sure," Holloway said, his voice angry and bitter and not believing for a second that there was any hope at all for the two men. "Wei, stay here. Keep a sharp eye."

They made it across the scarred ground without incident. To discover that there had indeed been no urgent need for the trip.

"Dead?" Holloway asked.

Melinda nodded, standing up again. Her heart was still pounding, but at least her stomach was settling down a little. The trick was to try to think of this as clinically as possible. To see them as medical subjects, not as murdered men. "Slashed carotid arteries," she said. "Both of them." She looked at Crane. "Did you see what happened?"

He shook his head. "Happened too fast. Some kind of weapon—came out of his mouth—"

"Hold it," Holloway cut him off, his eyes gazing hard at nothing in particular.

Melinda frowned. And then she heard it too: an all-too-familiar humming sound—

"Cover!" Holloway barked, grabbing her arm and pulling hard. Yanked off balance, Melinda fell to the ground, rolling partway over to bump her shoulder into the side of the downed copter. Holloway threw himself protectively on top of her as the others hit the scorched ground beside them.

And with an angry blast of hurricane wind three more Conqueror copters shot past overhead.

From the trees came the stutter-bark of an assault gun as Wei opened fire. One of the copters twisted to the side, shivering under the barrage as multiple explosions scattered bits of white from its underside. Above her Melinda could hear Holloway shouting something, his weight shifting and his elbow digging painfully into her ribs as he swung up his assault gun. All three copters were firing now, brilliant flickering bursts of laser fire tracking toward Wei's position in the trees. Melinda shrank back against the hot side of the downed copter as, all around her, Holloway and the others also began firing. One of the copters swung back around toward this new threat, ignoring the explosive shells raking across its side, its lasers lancing across the ground toward them. Melinda half closed her eyes, wondering how it would feel to die—

And with a flash of blue-white fire, the side of the copter blew out. Twisting over like a wounded animal, it plunged to a shattering impact on the ground. The other two copters abandoned their attack on Wei, swinging around just as twin blurs of black and white screamed past overhead.

The two Corvines had arrived.

The copters swung around again, their lasers trying to track the fighters. But the Corvines had already cut into impossibly tight turns and were coming back around again in some kind of double flanking maneuver. The copters fired, missed, fired again—

And disintegrated together in twin bursts of flame as the Corvines roared past.

The fragments hit the ground, the thunder of the explosions faded away, and then there was silence except for the ringing in Melinda's ears. "You all right?" Holloway asked, his voice sounding faint and distant despite the fact that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

"You keep asking me that," she chided, her own voice sounding no clearer than his did. Considering all her eardrums had been through, she was probably lucky she could hear anything at all. "What now?"

"We get out of here," he said, rolling off her and getting to his feet. "Crane, go check on Wei. The rest of you—"

"Colonel Holloway?" a voice called.

Holloway looked to the left. "Over here," he called back.

Melinda stood up as a man in Peacekeeper uniform came around the side of their protective copter, his assault gun held ready. "Colonel," he said, and even through her dazed ears Melinda could hear the relief in his voice. "Thank God, sir—we thought they'd iced you. We've got an aircar around back that way."

"Thanks," Holloway said. "Any status reports yet?"

"I haven't heard anything, sir," the other said. "Everyone's keeping off the radio. I know the Conquerors have taken the settlement, though, and that some of the other transports in that last batch are overdue. The Corvines have gone off to run cover for the search ships."

"All right," Holloway said grimly. "Let's get going before they need to bail us out again. Send someone to go give Crane a hand." He glanced at Melinda. "And have someone pick up one of those Conqueror bodies over there—grab whichever's in the best shape. Get a couple of their weapons, too."

Three minutes later they were in the air again. Melinda found herself looking past the dirty, powder-stained men to stare at the body bags that had been hastily piled in the rear of the craft. The war had indeed begun... and she was indeed here in the middle of it.

"Sorry you didn't leave when you had the chance?" Holloway asked quietly from beside her.

She turned to look at him. Those cool brown eyes were studying her closely. Maybe trying to decide if she was going to be more trouble than she was worth in the coming days. "I'm sorry any of this had to happen at all," she said. "I wish we could all have started by talking instead of shooting."

"We did," he reminded her bluntly. "It was the Conquerors who came out shooting."

"Maybe we scared them."

"Or maybe they just aren't interested in talking," Holloway countered. "There are all sorts of people, Doctor, humans and nonhumans alike, for whom talking just slows down the process of taking whatever it is they want. You run into one of them... well, you're a doctor. You know that sometimes there's only one way to stop a rabid animal."

He looked past her at the body bags. "Let's just hope the politicians have the guts to do it before anyone else has to die."

Melinda looked at the body bags again, a shiver running up her back. "You're talking about CIRCE."

"Damn right I am," he said. "I don't know what the geniuses at NorCoord are waiting for, anyway. I'd have started reassembling the thing the day the Jutland force was hit."

"Political considerations, probably," Melinda said. Pheylan had gone into a CIRCE kick, she remembered, when he was a child. Something he'd said then...

"You'd know more about that than I would," Holloway grunted. "Maybe this will finally get them off their soft seats and doing something."

"Maybe," Melinda said. "Colonel, you were in supreme command of the Peacekeeper forces on Dorcas, weren't you?"

"Still am," he said. "For whatever it's worth. Why?—you want the job?"

"No," Melinda said. "I was just wondering if you'd have known if any of the CIRCE components were being stored here."

For a long moment Holloway just stared at the body bags, his face rigid. "Oh, hell," he murmured at last.

Melinda's heart seemed to skip a beat. "Is one of them here?"

"I don't know," Holloway said, his face still tight. "Local commanders never do. But if it is, there's only one likely place it could be."

"Back at the garrison?"

"Not quite that bad," he said. "But bad enough. There's a small automated tectonic-monitoring station in the hills just north of the settlement that some NorCoord agency put in a few years back. At least, that's what they told me it was. If it's really the storage point for a CIRCE component—" He shook his head. "The good part is that it's well enough snugged in underground that the Conquerors probably won't know anything's there. The bad part is that we can't get to it without having to practically walk into their arms."

"So what do we do?"