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 theKinshasa 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?"
"Yes," Aric breathed, pulling out the orange injector and popping off its cover.
"Start with one dosage," Max said. "We'll see how it goes from there."
"Right." Pressing the flat edge of the injector against Pheylan's skin, Aric touched the trigger. "Any change?"
"One moment," Max said. "Yes, it's definitely helping. I believe he's out of danger, at least for the moment."
"We can do a more complete check when we get back to the fueler," Quinn added. "Might as well get some use out of that miniature pharmacy your sister stuffed aboard."
Wrapping his arms around his brother, Aric hugged him as he hadn't since childhood. They'd done it. They'd really done it. "Thank you, Quinn," he said quietly, his eyes filling with tears. "And all of you."
"Our pleasure," Quinn said. "Let's go home."
"We've decided to head directly for Edo," Aric said, hovering in the doorway. "Dorcas and the Mrach worlds are closer, but Quinn thinks that Colonel Holloway might still be too mad at us to listen before he threw us all into the stockade."
"Probably wouldn't be able to do anything even if he wanted to," Pheylan said, taking a sip of coffee-real, genuine Earth coffee-from his squeeze bottle. "Not unless Command's reassigned some warships to the region."
"True," Aric agreed. "They hadn't as of four days ago, anyway. And under the circumstances, none of us liked the idea of taking any of this into Mrach space."
"Can't say I blame you," Pheylan said. "Though I have to point out that the whole idea is probably a waste of time. Even if Command authorizes an expeditionary force to go back there, we're talking a good eighty hours of transit time, plus whatever it takes to throw the force together. Plenty of time for the Zhirrzh to pack up shop and clear out."
"Quinn knows that," Aric said. "There might still be some rubble left worth sifting through."
"Maybe. Might be a pleasant diversion from court-martial paperwork for them, anyway."
"Thanks for the reminder," Aric said, making a face at him. "I trust you'll be able to find time during your busy debriefing schedule to come by as character witness for the defense."
"Don't worry," Pheylan promised. "Trust me-I'll lay 'em dead in the aisles."
Aric's smile faded. "You were lucky," he said quietly. "You know that, don't you? They should have killed you the second they knew we were coming. All I can figure is that they thought they'd already finished you off."
Pheylan sipped again at his coffee, freshly aware of the dull throbbing in his shoulder where Thrr-gilag had stabbed him. There was sense in that, of course. He'd learned a lot about the Zhirrzh during his captivity; surely they wouldn't have wanted him rescued to take all that information back.
And yet... "No," he said slowly. "I don't think Thrr-gilag was trying to kill me. You haven't seen those tongues of theirs, Aric-damn things work like gutting knives. He could have ripped me clear to the bone and dumped in enough of that poison to kill me where I sat. Or skipped the poison routine entirely and just sliced my throat."
Aric shivered. "Maybe."
"No maybes about it," Pheylan told him. "He had to have been just trying to knock me out so they could haul me back to my cell. With that hologram sent in to distract me while he sliced up the obedience suit and took his shot."
"Must have been one impressive hologram," Aric said. "That still doesn't explain why he didn't change his mind when Paladin came roaring in over the trees at them."
Or why he or the Zhirrzh tech hadn't attacked long before they reached the Mrach ship, come to think of it. Had they been afraid Pheylan would be quick enough to break their necks before he succumbed to the poison? "Maybe he didn't have time," Pheylan said. "Maybe he panicked. Or maybe..."
"What?"
"It's a long shot," Pheylan said. "A real long shot. But maybe those little seeds of uncertainty I tried to plant in Thrr-gilag were finally starting to take root. Maybe he'd started to wonder if his leaders had lied about what happened at theJutland battle."
"I suppose that's possible," Aric said doubtfully. "But I wouldn't count very hard on it if I were you. You're asking him to take the word of an alien over his own people."
"He was thinking about it," Pheylan insisted. "He really was. He'll check into it."
"Maybe." Aric rubbed his cheek. "Speaking of aliens, you have any thoughts about that Mrach courier ship?"
"Not really," Pheylan shook his head. "The most likely possibility is that they ran into it at that mining world you mentioned, shot it out of the sky, and took it home as a souvenir."
"Figuring out how to fly it en route?"
"It would have been a little tricky," Pheylan conceded. "But on the other hand, I was outside pretty soon after it landed and never saw any actual Mrachanis." He shrugged. "Though on the other hand, the Zhirrzh could have just gotten them inside quickly."
"That's what I like about you, Pheylan: you always keep things clear-cut," Aric said dryly. "Well, at least that one's not our problem."
"Just as well," Pheylan said, setting his squeeze bottle on its patch and adjusting the straps on his sleep pad. "We're going to have enough on our hands just getting you, Dad, Quinn, and Melinda out from under all this."
"Not a problem," Aric assured him, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "Quinn and I are heroes now, you know, and you can't jail your heroes. And with Dad's connections, he and Melinda are probably already back home wondering what's taking us so long."
"I hope you're right," Pheylan said.
"Of course I'm right," Aric soothed him. "Besides, medical types with Melinda's credentials are far too valuable to lock away somewhere." Reaching into the room, he switched off the light. "Anyway. Max says you should get some rest. War may be looming on the horizon, but that's no reason we shouldn't catch up on our sleep."