Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

"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."

Pheylan reached up to rub his sore shoulder. "If the war hasn't already started," he said quietly. "It wasn't more than three days ago that Thrr-gilag was asking some rather insistent questions about the Copperheads."

Buried away, looking frail and old. And barely breathing.

"What's happened to him?" Cavanagh asked as one of Bronski's men wrapped the diagnostic band of a Peacekeeper medic box around his wrist.

"I don't know," Bronski said, sniffing the air suspiciously as he looked around the room. "Stress, maybe. Old age." He glanced around, gestured to one of his men. "Daschka, I want you to start checking out the area. All the bordering apartments, likely outside spots for bouncer setups—you know the routine. Leave Cho Ming on the door; you can take everyone else. You find any Mrachanis hanging around, you put 'em under detention—my authority and to hell with any diplomatic niceties."

"Right," Daschka nodded. "You heard him, gentlemen. Let's go."

He left, taking the rest of Bronski's squad with him.

"What are they looking for?" Cavanagh asked, taking a couple of experimental sniffs of his own. He couldn't smell anything.

"There's a smell in here that could be the residue from a hypnotic inducer," Kolchin told him. "If the Mrachanis were in a hurry to get information out of Sholom, they might have used something like that."

"Or abused something like that," Bronski growled. "Hypnotics are tricky to handle, and I doubt the Mrachanis have had much practice using them on humans."

"You might be surprised," Cavanagh said. He looked over at Lee, glowering out one of the windows. "Certainly seems to have been worth the effort to come find him."

Lee didn't reply. He hadn't said much at all since Bronski had pulled rank on him and taken them off Phormbi sixteen hours ago. "Well, they were certainly treating him like peerage otherwise," Bronski commented, glancing around the apartment. "We're definitely going to want to backtrack this. Find out when and how they got him to move in here."

"Sir, I've got a positive on a foreign substance in his bloodstream," the man crouched over Sholom said. "You were right on the nose: it reads out as a hypnotic. The box is mixing up a counteractive—he should be all right in a few minutes."

"Good job, Eisen," Bronski said. "Stay with him."

"Yes, sir."

There was a movement across the apartment, and Cavanagh turned to see Bronski's man Garcia come in. One look at his face—

"What is it?" Bronski asked.

"You asked me to go pull the Peacekeeper file from the last skitter into Mra-mig," Garcia said, his voice as grim as his face. "I didn't think this was something I should put across the phone system. Seems the Conquerors have hit Dorcas, Kalevala, and Massif."

Bronski's lip twitched. "Confirmed?"

"We've got two confirmations on the Dorcas attack: one from a man named McPhee from Parlimin VanDiver's staff, the other from the captain of Lord Cavanagh's private yacht. No information yet as to damage or situation. The Massif and Kalevala hits have yet to be confirmed. Command is sending task forces to check things out."

"Yeah," Bronski growled. "Well, it's started."

"Yes, sir." Garcia looked at Cavanagh. "One other interesting bit of information in that packet: Lord Cavanagh's son and daughter have been charged with grand theft of Peacekeeper property."

"I knew it," Lee snapped, turning away from the window. "I told you he was dirty, Bronski—I told you a hundred times. But you wouldn't listen."

"Shut up, Lee," Bronski said. "The report say whether the son and daughter are in custody?"

"The son isn't," Garcia said. "He's off somewhere with some stolen Peacekeeper fighters—there weren't any other details. The daughter is in detention on Dorcas."

Cavanagh's chest tightened. "On Dorcas?" he demanded. "You just said Dorcas was under attack."

Garcia shrugged. "Apparently, this VanDiver aide was supposed to take her out, but at the last minute the local commander decided to keep her there. That's all we know."

"Probably all we're going to know for a while, too," Bronski said. "All right. Daschka's out looking for whatever surveillance post the Mrachanis had set up here. Go give him a hand."

"Yes, sir." Turning, Garcia left the apartment.

"We have to get out there right away," Cavanagh said quietly to Kolchin as Garcia left the apartment. "Call Hill—tell him to charter us a ship. We'll need to get to Avon, connect back up with the Cavatina, and get out to Dorcas."

He'd been talking quietly. Apparently, not quietly enough. "Don't even think it, Cavanagh," Bronski said, looking over at him. "You're not going anywhere until we get all this straightened out."

"Brigadier, my daughter's in a war zone."

"And you're especially not going into a war zone," Bronski added. His lip twisted, a glimmer of sympathy edging through the professional cast-metal set of his face. "Look, I know how you feel. But the last thing we need is a civilian spinning around getting in the way. Let the professionals deal with it, all right? They'll get an attack fleet there; NorCoord will put CIRCE back together—"

"CIRCE," a weak voice murmured.

They all looked down at the old man lying on the floor. "Mr. Sholom?" Bronski said, dropping to one knee beside him". "I'm Brigadier Petr Bronski of NorCoord Military Intelligence. How are you feeling?"

"Absolutely wonderful," Sholom said, a dreamy smile creasing his face. "I'm floating where no one has ever seen."

"Yeah," Bronski said. "Well, it'll wear off soon enough. Anyway, you're safe now."

Sholom's smile turned bittersweet. "Safe, you say? Safe? No. It's all false, sir—all of it. No one is safe. The Conquerors are coming."

Bronski frowned at Eisen. "What is all this?"

"Residual effects of the hypnotic," Eisen told him. "I've seen this before. There'll be a few minutes of it while he comes back up out of the overdose."

"Okay. It's all right, Mr. Sholom. You'll be all right in a minute."

"Will I?" Sholom countered. "Will I really?" He shook his head. "None of us are going to be safe, Brigadier Bronski. Not from the Conquerors; not from anyone. I know, you see," he said, his voice dropping conspiratorially. "I figured it out. No one knew that I had; but I did. And I never told anyone. It was a fluke of nature, you see. A million-to-one coincidence. Maybe even a billion to one. But NorCoord was clever. Or maybe just desperate. Or maybe just too proud to pass up the chance. They took what happened and ran with it. Came up with a soap-bubble explanation and name and a way to use it. And it worked. It ended the war."