Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

With a whoosh and squeak of metal, another figure dropped to the floor back by the drop poles. "Kolchin?" Cavanagh asked.

"Yes, sir," the other acknowledged. "Is Fibbit there?"

"She's right here. Where's Hill?"

His answer was another whoosh of air as Hill's platform arrived. "You all right?" Kolchin asked.

"Fine," Hill said, sounding a little winded. "We'd better get moving—I dropped a misty, but that won't stop them for long."

"Right," Kolchin said as they joined Cavanagh and Fibbit in the alleyway. "I'm going to try to get to our car. You take Lord Cavanagh across the street and find some cover."

"Got it," Hill said, his gun in his hand again. "Come on, sir."

They started down the alleyway at a quick jog. "What happened back there?" Cavanagh asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"We didn't hurt anyone, if that's what you mean," Hill assured him. "Just blew out some sections of floor and ceiling for visual cover."

They reached the end of the alleyway, and Hill paused to throw a careful look both ways down the deserted cross street. "Looks clear," he said. "That doorway over there—the one with the overhang? We'll try for there."

They made it across the street and into the doorway without attracting any obvious notice. "You think it's safe for me to call the ship?" Cavanagh asked, pulling out his phone.

"Put it on scramble," Hill said, crouching at the edge of the doorway and looking again down the street. "And keep it short."

"Right."

He punched in the number; and Teva himself answered on the first buzz. "Lord Cavanagh," he said, his voice tense. "Where are you, sir?"

"We're on our way," Cavanagh said. "We should be there in ten minutes."

Teva glanced at something past the phone screen. "I'm not sure you've got that long, sir," he said. "We just got a call from someone named Petr Bronski who says he's a Commonwealth assistant diplomatic liaison. He's ordering us to secure from launch prep and prepare to receive him."

"What are the Mrachanis saying?"

"The Mrachanis? Nothing."

Cavanagh frowned. "Nothing?"

"Well, nothing since they gave us lift clearance a couple of minutes ago. That was just before Bronski called."

"And the clearance hasn't been revoked?"

"No, sir."

Cavanagh looked out into the deserted street, chewing his lip. This didn't make any sense at all. If Bronski wanted the Cavatina grounded, his first call should have been to the spaceport tower, not to the ship. After all, he was acting under the auspices of the Mrach government.

Or at least that was what he claimed....

"New orders," he told Teva. "Lift now, while you still have clearance."

Teva's jaw dropped a centimeter. "Now, sir?"

"Now," Cavanagh repeated firmly. "Don't wait for us; and don't be there when Bronski arrives."

"Lord Cavanagh, I have a responsibility to you."

"Your responsibility is to the ship and to the family," Cavanagh said firmly. "And to obey all family orders. Go to Dorcas as scheduled and tell Aric that the vector search came up dry. He'll understand. After that you're to head back home. We'll find our own way back or else contact you there."

Teva took a deep and obviously painful breath. "Yes, sir," he gritted. "Good luck, sir."

The screen blanked. "Any sign of Kolchin?" Cavanagh asked, putting the phone away.

"Not yet," Hill said, throwing Cavanagh an odd look. "Sir, I'm not sure sending the Cavatina away was a good idea."

"I don't like it either," Cavanagh conceded. "But if they don't get off now, they might not get the chance. I've had a few minutes to think; and there's only one reason I can think of as to why those Bhurtala were at our elevators. They have to be working for the Mrachanis. Or rather, one group of Mrachanis."

Hill frowned. "Passing over the whole question of their working for any non-Bhurt boss, I thought the Mrach hierarchy was pretty much monolithic."

"That's what I've always heard, too," Cavanagh agreed. "But remember that visitor we had, the one who was worried about being caught talking to us? You'll notice he showed up and disappeared just ahead of the Bhurtala. Bhurtala who seemed anxious to keep any humans from leaving the area."

"Which would put the Bhurtala and Bronski on different sides," Hill said slowly. "Unless they both work for the same people and just got their wires crossed."

"That's a possibility," Cavanagh nodded, looking over at Fibbit. The Sanduul was pressed into deep shadow, probably somewhere between bewildered and terrified by all this. "Either way, the implication I get is that the man in Fibbit's threading is more important than anyone's letting on."

"Whoever he is," Hill grunted. "Here comes Kolchin."

"Good," Cavanagh said, beckoning to Fibbit. "Come on."

The car pulled to the curb, and the three of them quickly piled in. "Any trouble?" Cavanagh asked as Kolchin pulled away and headed down the street.

"None," the other said. "Whoever hired those Bhurtala seems to be a little slow on the uptake."

So Kolchin was working on the same line of thought that Cavanagh was. "They might be, but Bronski isn't," he said. "He called the Cavatina and ordered them to secure from launch prep."

"And?"

"And I ordered Teva to go ahead and lift."

"I see," Kolchin said, his voice not giving anything away. "What about us?"

"I'm not sure," Cavanagh conceded. "I was hoping you might have an idea where we might be able to buy ourselves a ship."

He peered into the front seat in time to catch Kolchin's tight smile. "Actually, sir, I might be able to do a bit better than that. You remember I told you I was here once to advise the Mrachanis on urban warfare?"

"Yes."

"One of our recommendations was to stash some fighters and courier ships way out in mountain caves where they wouldn't be caught in whatever fighting happened over Mig-Ka and other cities. That way they wouldn't be caught completely without out-system communication capabilities."

"Sounds like a good plan. You wouldn't happen to know where these ships are hidden, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, we helped supervise their hiding," Kolchin said with a sort of grim satisfaction. "We'll be there in a couple of hours."

Beside him Hill snorted gently. "Assuming the Mrachanis don't get their act together and come after us, of course."

"You sure, Gasperi?" Holloway asked, frowning at the display. "That doesn't look like any fighter baseline I've ever seen."

"It's fighters, all right, Colonel," Gasperi assured him. He touched a key, and six images appeared across the ident screen. "What threw me was that they're flying in a nonstandard formation," he said, fiddling with the controls. "Very close, with a partial overlap and interference cancellation in the baseline signatures. Watch as I bring them together."

The images on the screen moved inward; and the corresponding baseline schematic rippled and convulsed into a copy of the one showing on the tachyon pickup. "Like that."

"Makes for a much smaller footprint than a standard formation," Takara observed. "Harder for any snooping Conqueror scouts to pick up. Pretty fancy flying, though."

"Fancy or stupid," Holloway agreed. "Any idea yet who they are?"

"With that kind of formation?" Gasperi shrugged. "Have to be Copperheads. Corvines, probably."

Takara looked at Holloway. "The rest of Commander Quinn's contingent?"

"Probably," Holloway said. "What are we looking at, about an hour to mesh and another to groundfall?"

"About that," Gasperi nodded.

Holloway looked at his watch. Almost exactly the same time the skitter was due back from Edo, assuming the desk pilots there had been halfway efficient at pulling up Quinn's orders. Or the lack of them.