Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

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."