Conquerors' Pride

21

"Acknowledged," Quinn said. "Okay, Max, start your scan."

"Yes, Commander," the computer said. "Beginning sectoring pattern."

Aric took a deep breath, exhaled slowly against his faceplate, his eyes tracing the curved edge of the planet outside the Counterpunch's canopy as it cut a boundary between the dull metal of the fueler's hull above and the scattering of stars below. The first system they'd hit had been the worst: the nerve-racking wait in the close confines of the fighter cockpit, wondering when Quinn would kick the release and send them spinning out into combat with an enemy whose existence Aric wouldn't even know about until that instant. The second system hadn't been much better, but he'd permitted himself to hope that he was adapting.

He wasn't. Now, the third time around, he was just as nervous as he had been at the beginning. Sitting here in a Copperhead fighter, staring at the back of Quinn's helmet, he felt as out of place as he had as a child in his father's office, waiting for that last phone conversation or meeting of the day to be over. Beside him the Mindlink jack was a gaping reminder of just how out of place he was; the meager row of status lights beside it an even more pointed reminder that if and when that combat situation arose, he would be nothing but deadweight.

And topping it all was the fact that this was their midway point: the third system of the five the other Copperheads had agreed to help search. Three more blanks, and they would be returning to the Commonwealth, to face whatever charges Peacekeeper Command decided to throw at them.

And to abandon Pheylan to the Conquerors.

"Report, Commander," Max's voice cut into Aric's gloom. "I've located a substantial region of refined metal. Feeding location and specifications."

Aric felt his stomach tighten. Could this be it? "Where is it?" he asked.

"About a quarter of the way to the eastern horizon," Quinn said. "Looks too spread out to be a ship. Maybe a base or sections of a small city. Continue scan, Max—keep a sharp watch for vehicles. What do you think, Clipper?"

"Sounds worth taking a look at," Clipper said.

"Agreed. I'll take center; form up around me."

"Acknowledged. Let's go, gentlemen. Paladin, take point; Shrike, take portside flank. Harlequin, you're on high cover."

There was a jerk of released clamps, and the fueler bounced up and away as the Counterpunch dropped free. "What do you want me to do?" Aric asked, trying to keep the quavering out of his voice.

"Just sit back and enjoy the ride," Quinn said, his voice suddenly vague and distant as a small green light appeared on Aric's board. Quinn had engaged the Counterpunch's Mindlink. Together he and the fighter were now a single, living entity.

With Aric as little more than excess baggage. Grimacing, he hunched his shoulders inside his flight suit and settled down to sweat it out.

The minutes dragged by. The five ships reached atmosphere without provoking any response and started down, the fighters' wing and tail-line positions continually reconfiguring as they drove through increasingly thicker air. "Got visual," Paladin's voice came. "Looks like a city, all right. Or what's left of one."

"Battle damage?" Harlequin asked.

"Or just natural deterioration," Dazzler, Paladin's tail, put in. "Can't tell which from up here. It's definitely more ruins than city, though."

"Let's take a closer look," Quinn said. "Keep the formation loose."

More minutes dragged by. The Counterpunch passed through a layer of cirrus clouds, heading down toward rolling wooded hills below. In the distance to the left Aric could see the sparkle of sunlight on water—a river or the edge of a lake; he couldn't tell which—with a suggestion of taller hills on the horizon in the other direction. Ahead, the hills they were traveling over seemed to be giving way to a flatter terrain, the trees similarly giving way to a wide grassland. Far ahead he could see the sparkle of another body of water.

"Maestro, we're over the city," Dazzler reported. "Lots of broken stone and metal, but it's all scattered around through big patches of vegetation. Looks pretty old."

"What about the ground itself?" Quinn asked.

"No obvious pits or burn marks," Dazzler said. "If there was a battle here, it must have happened a long time ago. Wait a minute."

For a moment there was silence. "Interesting," Dazzler said at last. "What do you think, Maestro?"

"Interesting, indeed," Quinn said. "Worth a closer look. Bookmaker, how's the high ground look?"

"Still showing clear," Bookmaker said. "If there's anyone here, they don't seem to have noticed us."

"Max?"

"I concur, Commander," the computer replied. "Continuing scan, but so far I've found nothing but the city."

"Must have been some war," Aric murmured uneasily.

"Not necessarily," Quinn said. "The city could have been nothing more than a base. A first-stage colonization effort someone put in and then gave up on. Clipper, form up a screen; El Dorado and I are going in."

"What are we going in to see?" Aric asked as the Counterpunch rolled partway over and dropped toward the ground.

"It's some sort of odd pyramid thing," Quinn told him. "About three meters high, white with lots of black speckles across the surface." His helmet bobbed as he nodded. "It'll be coming up on our left. Take a look."

The side of the Counterpunch dipped again, and Aric looked out. There it was: a triangular shape of glistening white, looking garishly out of place among the darker oxidized metal and broken masonry and pale-green plants. The spots Quinn had mentioned were closely but irregularly spaced, starting about a third of the way up from the bottom. Aric looked at it, lifted his gaze farther out—"Is that a fence over there?" he asked.

"Where?"

"Out there—that thick dark line a couple hundred meters away." He peered forward over Quinn's helmet. "There—straight ahead now—there's a section of it."

"It's a fence, all right," Quinn acknowledged, pulling a sharp turn that threatened to leave Aric's stomach behind. "Close mesh, but it's not metal, Can't get a clear reading on what it is at this distance."

"Definitely looks like they're not encouraging visitors, anyway," Aric said, feeling a queasiness in his stomach that wasn't entirely due to Quinn's flying. "You suppose there might be other defenses?"

"Fair chance of that," Quinn conceded. "I'm not reading anything, but the sensors I've got aren't really designed for this sort of thing. It's your call—you want to just skip it?"

Aric grimaced. "No," he said. "It's the first lead we've had. We can't afford to pass it up. Let's go down."

"Okay," Quinn said. "Clipper, we're going in. Keep a sharp eye."

The Counterpunch swung back around toward the pyramid, its nose swinging up and then dropping again as Quinn switched to vertical landing mode and set them down. "I won't be long," he told Aric as the canopy slid back. "Stay put and keep watch."

"No," Aric said, punching his restraint release. "You stay here. I'll go."

Quinn twisted back around, a startled look on the part of his face Aric could see. "Mr. Cavanagh—"

"It's El Dorado here," Aric told him firmly, pulling himself up out of his seat and hoping sheer momentum would get him out of the fighter before he could change his mind. "And this isn't open to argument."

"It could be dangerous—"

"It sure could," Aric grunted. "And if there's trouble, whoever's out there is going to need backup. You can fly this thing. I can't. So I'm elected."

He dropped over the side of the fighter to the ground before Quinn could protest further, staggering a bit after the zero-gee of the past two days. Carefully, trying to watch every direction at once, he started toward the pyramid.

The ground was soft and uneven, with a large assortment of obstacles created by the half-hidden pieces of twisted metal and broken masonry. But no spears or snares or explosives kicked in. A nerve-racking but uneventful minute later, he had reached the pyramid.

It was, as Quinn had estimated, about three meters high, its surface a brilliantly reflective and unstained white. And as for the spots they'd seen—

"They're not spots," he said, peering closely at one of them. "They're holes. Squashed oval shape, about four centimeters across and two high and two or three deep."

"Odd sort of erosion pattern," Harlequin commented.

"More likely a shaped gunfire charge," Clipper suggested.

"It's neither," Aric told them. "For one thing, the holes are too smooth and too neatly shaped. For another, each one's got a little cover door built over it."

"A door?" Delphi echoed. "What kind of door?"

"A mesh of some kind," Aric said. "Extremely fine fibers, with a very tight weave. The material's shimmery, but I don't think it's metal. Could be spun glass, I suppose."

"You're right, it's not reading as metal," Quinn confirmed. "Neither is the pyramid itself."

"The final report on the Jutland attack indicated the Conquerors use little or no metal in their construction," Shrike pointed out.

"True," Clipper said. "Though that's hardly proof that this is a Conqueror construct. El Dorado, can you see through the mesh at all?"

"Quite well, actually," Aric said, moving around the pyramid and looking through the various doors. "Most of the holes seem to be empty. Wait a minute; here's one—" He frowned. Looked again. "With a thin slice of dried meat inside it."

"A what?" Paladin demanded.

"Well, that's what it looks like," Aric said. "A very thin slice off a small dried sausage, just lying there on the floor. Dark brown in color; about the diameter of my little finger." He glanced through several of the other doors. "There are a couple more like that, too. Most look pretty much the same, though the color varies a little. Wait; here's one slice that's a lot thicker than the others. Maybe three or four times as thick."

There was a long pause. Aric leaned close to the mesh covering that last hole, trying for a better look at the thing inside. Just like a slice of cured sausage, all right: dark brown with a hint of red, slightly wrinkled, looking old and dry. The breeze rustling through the trees grew louder for a moment, and he saw the sausage slice rock gently as an eddy current slipped through the mesh door. The breeze faded away....

And Aric stiffened. Without the wind whistling past his helmet, he could hear something now. Quiet and vague, almost at the edge of his imagination. But definitely there.

A long, wailing scream.

"How are the doors sealed?" Delphi asked.

Aric jumped, the other's voice somehow startling coming in on top of that distant scream. "Sorry. What?"

"I asked how the doors are sealed."

"Uh..." Aric prodded the edge of one with a gloved finger. The pyramid material itself was exceptionally slippery, he noted. "They seem pretty solid," he said. "They're hinged at the top, with some kind of locking catch at the bottom. You want me to try to open it?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Quinn warned. "Anyone who would put protective doors on something like that might have put in other defenses against tampering. Besides, we've still got a lot of ground to cover. Max? Anything new from up there?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," the computer answered. "I should point out, however, that the fueler's sensors haven't been designed for long-range detection of the sort of materials the Conquerors seem to favor."

"We're not much better down here," Quinn said. "You just keep watching the infrared and motion sensors. Come on back, El Dorado, and we'll get out of here."

"All right," Aric said, starting back toward the Counterpunch. "One other thing that might or might not be important. A minute ago, when everything else was very quiet, I thought I heard a faint scream."

"What sort of scream?" Clipper asked.

"I don't really know," Aric said. "Just your basic generic scream, really. If I had to guess, though, I'd say it sounded more like pain than anger."

He was at the top of the Counterpunch's flowmetal ladder before anyone spoke again. "You sure you didn't imagine it?" Quinn asked.

"I'm not sure, no," Aric admitted as he dropped into his seat. "But it sure sounded real at the time."

"None of the rest of us heard it," Clipper said. "But that doesn't mean anything, not with the cut-rate helmet mikes they've stuck us with these days."

"We can have Max scrub through the cockpit recordings when we get back to the fueler," Crackajack said. "Maybe he can dig something out."

"Maybe," Aric murmured, strapping in again. A scream of agony. Or maybe a chorus of screams—several of the niches had had sausage slices stashed away in them.

Stashed away... or locked away. Could the pyramid thing be a prison of some sort?

He snorted under his breath. A prison for sausage slices. Right. Clearly, there had to be a better explanation.

Only problem was, he couldn't think of one. The Counterpunch lurched back into the air. "Evaluation?" Quinn asked as he swung the nose away from the pyramid.

"I was afraid you'd ask me that," Aric said. "I don't have one. Nothing that makes any sense, anyway."

"Well, if it helps, you've got plenty of company," Quinn said. "I can't begin to think why anyone would put something out in the middle of nowhere like that."

"Unless it's some kind of warning," Aric said as an unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to him. "You know—that old barbarian technique of impaling your victims' heads on poles to warn off other enemies."

"You know anyone who makes war on sausages?" Bookmaker put in dryly.

"Besides, why go to the trouble of protecting something like that with mesh doors and a perimeter fence?" Crackajack added. "You want people to get close enough to see it."

"Point," Aric conceded with a sigh. "Where are we going to look next?"

"There's a large river about a hundred klicks to the east," Quinn said. "We'll start there."

"Commander, this is Max," the computer voice cut in. "I'm picking up a group of incoming tachyon wake-trails. Preliminary analysis indicates it to be two Conqueror ships."

Aric felt his heart skip a beat. "You sure?"

"The wake-trails match the baselines from the Jutland attack."

"Interesting timing," Clipper said. "Warrior's luck, Maestro. Max, what's their ETA?"

"Approximately two hours until mesh," Max said.

"Have you got a clear vector?"

"Assuming my baseline data is accurate, the vector is quite clear," Max assured him. "Sending to you now."

There was a moment of silence. Aric swallowed, looking up at the high clouds overhead. It was all right. They had two hours to get out of here before the Conquerors arrived.

Or two hours to find Pheylan. If this was, in fact, where he was being kept.

"Max, are you sure about this vector?" Delphi asked.

"Quite certain," the computer said. "Again, presuming the accuracy of my baseline information."

"What's wrong?" Aric asked.

"The vector makes no sense, that's what's wrong," Delphi said tartly. "There's not a system on that line for nearly a hundred fifty light-years."

Aric frowned. "That seems a little high."

"And nothing within ninety light-years inside a three-degree uncertainty cone," Crackajack added.

"Maybe they're coming from a station," Aric suggested hesitantly. "Something in deep space, between two solar systems."

"That doesn't make a lot of sense, either," Harlequin said.

"Maybe not to us," Dazzler reminded him. "These guys are aliens, remember?"

"Let's cut the chatter," Clipper cut them off. "Maestro, what's the plan?"

"We've got two hours," Quinn said. "We'll use the first one to continue our search. Wide spread, no overlap, and cover as much territory as you can. Harlequin, you join the pattern; I'll take over high cover for you."

"Delphi will feed you your vectors," Clipper said. "Let's get to it, gentlemen."

The final red light on the auxiliary board winked to green. "That's the last of the refuelings," Aric reported tightly. "How are you doing there?"

"All set," Quinn said from his seat at the fueler's main control board. "Ready to go as soon as Max gets all the numbers he can."

"Good," Aric said. He turned back to the fighter-status board, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. They'd reached the fueler with a good twenty minutes to spare, and he'd naturally assumed they'd be heading out as soon as the fighters were berthed. Plenty of time to avoid the potential nastiness of an encounter with the Conquerors.

Quinn had had other ideas. The incoming ships' heat-emission numbers, he'd pointed out, were likely to be the only clue they would get as to how far the ships had come. The fueler had the proper instruments to get those numbers, and Max had the proper programming to sift through and interpret them.

And so here they waited. Sitting ducks, waiting for the Conquerors to arrive. Hoping that the newcomers would mesh in close enough for them to get a good reading, but far enough away that they wouldn't spot, track, and summarily vaporize the fueler.

"I wonder if we should change our orbit again," Aric said, drifting over to hover at Quinn's shoulder. "Moving higher up in the gravity well would let us mesh out a little faster."

"We're fine right where we are," Quinn soothed him. "That last shift should get us to apogee just about the time they mesh in." He glanced up at Aric. "Look, relax, all right? Odds are they won't even know we're here until we're long gone. Max, any change in their vector?"

"No, Commander. Still as originally computed."

"Watch out for a shift right at the end," Quinn warned. "They might have a specific approach they like to come in on."

"Acknowledged," Max said. "They'll be meshing in in approximately one minute."

Aric looked at the display, and the hazy horizon of the planet beneath them. "What do we do if they come out on the far side of the planet?"

"We'll have to see what their orbit insertion looks like," Quinn said. He was holding the end of his Mindlink cable in his hand; with only a slight hesitation he plugged it into the jack beside the main display. "If it looks like they might come into Max's range within a couple of minutes, we'll probably hang around and try to get a reading. Get ready; here they come."

Aric held his breath, unconsciously bracing himself as he watched the displays. The timer counted down....

"Vector shift!" Quinn snapped. "Coming around toward us—"

And then, suddenly, there they were: two ships, milky-white, the same linked-hexagon configuration that the Jutland watchships' records had burned into Aric's memory. A little below them, falling into an orbit roughly parallel to theirs.

Barely two kilometers away.

"Quinn!" Aric barked. Practically right on top of them—!

Quinn didn't answer. Aric looked down at him, a hand reflexively coming up to point at the display.

He froze, finger still pointed at the board. Quinn was sitting motionlessly in his seat, his forehead creased with concentration, his eyes staring with a chilling blankness at the display and the Conqueror ships visible there.

And on the board beside the computer-link jack, two pale-green lights had come on.

Aric looked back at the display, a tingle of eerie unreality clouding over the surge of panic. The Conqueror ships were starting to rotate their edges toward the fueler, the Corvines in sight now as they darted toward the alien ships like angry hawks defending their nest. Deadly silent, deadly serious, deadly precise. Four fighters, one fueler, working now as a single unit.

Copperheads.

Out of the corner of his eye Aric saw a light flick on beneath the display—

And with a suddenness that made him jump, the display shimmered and the Conquerors and planet vanished. "Quinn! What—? Did we mesh out?"

For a half-dozen heartbeats there was no answer. Then, slowly, Quinn's eyes came back to focus. "Yes," he said, his voice sounding strange. "We got the readings we needed and left. No damage."

"Ah," Aric said, feeling oddly out of breath. "What about the Corvines?"

"Should be right with us," Quinn said. The two lights beneath the jack had gone out; reaching over, he pulled out the Mindlink cable. "We're doing a two-minute parallel jump."

"I see," Aric said. He'd seen people try parallel jumps on occasion, never with optimum results. The twin problems of timing and drift... but then, those pilots hadn't had Copperhead synchronization. "Did anyone get a static bomb off?"

"No," Quinn said, his voice a little grim. "There wasn't enough time. That's why we're just doing two minutes."

Aric looked at the display, now functioning as the fueler's main status board. "What happens if they track us?"

Quinn shrugged, pulling the other end of the cable out of the jack hidden under the hair beneath his right ear. "We fight, I guess. Don't worry, though—there's a good chance they won't be able to find us. Two minutes is considered optimum timing for the enemy to get a track on your wake-trail and mesh out after you. Since we'll be meshing in about that same time, they should wind up shooting right past us."

"That assumes they can't track a wake-trail while in stardrive," Aric pointed out. "Or that they won't wait that extra minute and notice that we've meshed in again."

Quinn shook his head. "Doubt it. So far their stardrive seems to work the same way as ours. It's unlikely their tracking system would work any differently."

"As unlikely as their meshing in only two kilometers away from us?"

For a moment Quinn was silent. "You're right," he conceded. He sat there another moment, then picked up the connector cable and reinserted it into the jack behind his ear. "Max, I want an immediate tactical scan as soon as we mesh in," he ordered, plugging in the other end of the cable.

"Yes, Commander."

One of the two green lights beside the jack came on. "Stand ready, El Dorado," Quinn said. "Here we go."

Once again the seconds counted down; and with another shimmer the stars were back. Holding his breath, Aric stared at the display. "I don't see them," he murmured. "The Corvines. Where are they?"

Silence. "Quinn?" Aric demanded. "Where are they?"

"There," Quinn said, relief evident in his voice. "There, and over there. Just had a little drift problem, that's all. They're on their way. Damage... not reading any."

"Great," Aric said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. It was like coming off one of those terrifying amusement-park gravity rides that he'd always hated. The kind Pheylan and Melinda had always tried to drag him onto when they were kids.

Unfortunately, this ride wasn't over yet. "What do we do if the Conquerors show up? Run for it?"

"Immediately," Quinn nodded. "Don't worry, the others all have the contingency rendezvous point. Max, how's the analysis on those ships coming?"

"It's finished, Commander," the computer said. "I'm afraid it's not going to be as useful as you hoped."

"They never are," Quinn said. "Let's hear it."

One of the side displays lit up with a false-color diagram of the two Conqueror ships. "Here are the raw data," Max said. "You'll see that aside from the beginnings of edge-effect dissipation, the infrared pattern is remarkably uniform. This implies either an extremely cool drive mechanism or else a highly efficient heat-redistribution system."

"Hull-based superconductors?" Aric suggested.

"That's one possibility," Max agreed. "Unfortunately, that uncertainty coupled with our lack of data on the hull material itself leaves us with a considerable margin of error for any distance calculation. It will be better than the Jutland was able to obtain, though, given the immediacy of these readings."

"Bottom line, Max," Quinn said. "Let's have it."

The false-color images were replaced by a star chart, with a vector marked in red. "I estimate the ships had traveled between twenty-five and seventy light-years," Max said.

Quinn snorted. "Twenty-five to seventy?" he echoed. "Why don't you make it an even zero to one billion while you're at it?"

"I'm sorry, Commander," Max said, sounding genuinely regretful. "Without better data that's the best I can do."

"I know," Quinn sighed. "Forget it."

Aric looked at the chart. Delphi's estimate had been right: there wasn't a single system on or near that line for nearly a hundred light-years. "It has to be a space station," he said. "That's the only way it can make any sense."

"I know," Quinn said. "I know. The problem..." He broke off, waving a hand helplessly at the chart.

Aric nodded, a hard knot of gloom settling into the pit of his stomach. To find a single deep-space station along a line forty-five light-years long... "It can't be done, can it?" he asked quietly.

"No," Quinn said. "There's not a chance in hell. Not if we had every ship in the Commonwealth to help us."

Aric looked at the red line. "So what do we do?"

Quinn looked up at him. "We go home, sir," he said. "There's nothing else we can do."

The control room was suddenly as silent as a tomb. Pheylan's tomb. "Not yet," Aric said. "We can't go yet. We can do two more systems—the others promised they'd help us search that many."

Quinn waved again at the chart. "Fine. Which two do you want?"

Aric shook his head. All those stars. Where even to think about beginning?

"It's over, Mr. Cavanagh," Quinn said into the silence. "We did everything we could. It wasn't enough. It's time to go home."

"You that eager to face trial?" Aric bit out.

"No," Quinn said. "I'm not eager to prepare for war, either. But we'll probably have to do both."

Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean it that way."

For a minute Quinn was silent. "We need to release the others to go back," he said at last. "That was our agreement. But if you want to continue... I guess I'm willing to keep going. We could probably go another month on our own before we had to turn back."

"And where would we look?" Aric countered.

Quinn shrugged slightly. "Wherever you wanted."

Aric turned away from the chart, his mind churning with anger and frustration. But Quinn was right. They literally had no place to start looking. "No," he said. "You're right. There's nothing more we can do." He took a deep breath. "When do we leave?"

"The Corvines will be back here in about four hours if they stick with their current minimal-fuel course," Quinn said. "We'll get the fighters berthed and refueled and then head home. Either to Dorcas or straight on to Edo."

Aric nodded. The plan made sense, of course—they had no reason to hang around here once they'd made the decision to leave. But still... "Maybe we should all get some rest first," he said over his shoulder. "Could be the Conquerors just weren't able to track a tachyon wake-trail this short. They might be waiting for us to mesh out and start after us then."

"Not if we drop a static bomb first," Quinn pointed out.

"We could all still use some rest," Aric insisted. "All of us need it."

He could feel Quinn's gaze on the back of his head. "All right," the other said. "How much time do you want?"

Or in other words, how much time did he need to reconcile himself to abandoning Pheylan to the Conquerors. "Let's make it ten hours from now," Aric said. "That'll give everyone about six hours of sleep."

"Agreed," Quinn said.

Aric took a deep breath. So that was it. He had ten hours in which to pull a miracle out of a hat.