Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Legacy

The Zhirrzh holding Klnn-dawan-a's arm had already barked an order, and the rifle muzzles had moved uncertainly off their targets. Though not very far off their targets. "Tell them to lay the guns down on the floor," Pheylan said, breathing hard with exertion and trying to ignore the rekindled pain in his leg. He looked along the second guard's barrel, spotted the obedience-suit trigger that the alien had strapped halfway along it. "And have them release Melinda's suit," he added. "Go ahead, tell them."

Thrr-gilag translated. The Zhirrzh holding Klnn-dawan-a flicked his tongue out and said something in return. "Second Commander Klnn-vavgi will not so order," Thrr-gilag said, his voice as agitated as the blur of his tail spinning behind him. "He orders you instead to release Mnov-korthe unharmed."

"You know better than that, Thrr-gilag," Pheylan bit out. "We've been here before, you and me, remember? I'm not letting him go."

"It will serve no purpose, Pheylan Cavanagh," Thrr-gilag said. "Second Commander Klnn-vavgi cannot allow you to escape. The warriors are already gathering; and if you are killed, it will greatly harm the chances for us to stop the war."

Pheylan shook his head. "This is a matter for diplomats, Thrr-gilag. I'm one solitary soldier. I can't stop any wars."

"But the diplomats will not hear unless you take word to them," Thrr-gilag persisted. "We have no direct contact with any other Humans who can tell them."

Pheylan clenched his teeth, uncertainty twisting through his gut. "What was Mnov-korthe ordering just before I grabbed him?"

Thrr-gilag looked down at Melinda, still frozen in place on the floor. "He had ordered the warriors to shoot Melinda Cavanagh."

Pheylan tightened his grip around Mnov-korthe's neck a little. "And you said he was in command here?"

"Yes."

"So if I let him go, and he tells them to shoot her, they will?"

Thrr-gilag hissed softly. "Yes."

"Then I can't let him go," Pheylan told him. "And I won't."

"Pheylan, this is crazy," Melinda said, her voice sounding slurred with her cheek pressed against the floor. "This is a chance to stop the war. You can't throw that away for one life. Not even mine."

"I came here to help you, Melinda," Pheylan said, the words sounding bitter in his ears. He'd certainly done a terrific job of it. "Getting you killed is not exactly how I intended to do it."

"Pheylan, listen—"

"Besides, who says this Mnov-korthe character even wants peace?" he cut her off. "Or that any of the Zhirrzh really want peace? You heard the Overclan Prime—he can't even order the blockade ships over Dorcas to let anyone out."

"That is why we need you alive," Thrr-gilag said. "Through you the Overclan Prime may negotiate a stop to the fighting."

"And that's also why Mnov-korthe will probably order us killed the minute he has the chance," Pheylan told him tightly. "If his boss is one of those who wants the war to continue, killing us here and now is the simplest way to accomplish that." He nodded toward the spot where their ghost had last appeared. "You'd better get word back to the Overclan Prime."

"He has been informed," Thrr-gilag said. "Perhaps he can do something to help."

"Right," Pheylan murmured. But he doubted it. It sounded as if the Overclan Prime was in the middle of a major political fight on this one; and he'd seen enough of his father's own battles in the NorCoord Parliament to know their outcome was never certain. And if the Prime lost this one...

"So what do we do now?" Melinda murmured.

Pheylan looked around the room. "We start by staying calm," Pheylan told her. "We don't want to do anything to provoke them."

"I think I can handle that," she said dryly. "What then?"

He shook his head. "I haven't the faintest idea."

"All attack units are in the air and in formation," Takara reported tightly. "Transports lifting now, falling in behind. ETA, sixteen minutes."

"Acknowledged," Holloway said, gazing out the aircar canopy at the hills rolling by beneath them. Ahead, the last glow of sunset was fading from the sky, leaving a hyphenated layer of purple clouds behind it. "Have Vanbrugh and Hodgson lifted yet?"

"Their Corvine's lifting now," Takara said, pressing his headphone closer to his ear. "Gaining altitude. Base reports no enemy response yet."

Holloway grimaced. It was a terrible risk, sending one of their irreplaceable Corvines into the free-fire zone of the Zhirrzh blockade like this. But it was a risk that had to be taken. "Have there been any more explosions in the enemy camp?" he asked.

"Just those four," Takara said. "The spotters think they've located the affected building, at one of two centers of increased enemy activity."

"Probably means they had Janovetz and the Cavanaghs split up," Holloway said. "You have both centers marked?"

"Yes." Takara touched a key, and an overlay appeared on the canopy view.

Holloway studied it briefly. Two buildings fronting onto the landing field, no more than a hundred meters apart. Perfect. "Send that to the rest of the force," he ordered. "We'll be putting down midway between them; everything around those zones is free-fire. Remind everyone that the objective here is to take out the antiaircraft weaponry, not to rack up enemy casualties."

"They've been so informed." Takara threw him a sideways look. "You sure you want to do this, Cass?"

Holloway gazed out at the horizon. No, he wasn't at all sure. He'd been three-quarters convinced already that this batch of Zhirrzh weren't nearly as savage or bloodthirsty as the group who'd hit the Jutland, even before Melinda Cavanagh's ghost had shown up with this radio/Elderdeath-weapon theory of his. Up to now, in fact, the war here had been remarkably clean, almost civilized.

But Holloway's job wasn't to keep the war civilized. It was to protect the people under his authority. And right now that meant finding a way to get them off-planet before the halucine epidemic condemned them to slow starvation.

And if he had to flatten that entire village over there to accomplish that, then that was what he would do. Civilized warfare or not. "We're doing what we have to, Major," he said.

"I do not know more," Thrr't-rokik said, his thin voice as agitated as Cavanagh felt. "Prr't-zevisti says that human aircraft coming toward Zhirrzh encampment. I must go hear what is happening."

"Wait a minute," Cavanagh called. "What about Pheylan and Melinda? You said something had gone wrong—?"

"Don't bother—he's gone," Bronski said grimly. He was up off his cot now, pulling his shirt off and stuffing it into the wall slot where one of the Mrachanis' hidden cameras was located. "Do what I'm doing over the camera on your side. Kolchin, I need two bolas and a slingshot."

"Right," Kolchin said, pulling out the impromptu screwdriver he'd used earlier on the door. Pushing his mattress onto the floor, he set the metal cot frame up on its side and got to work on the hardware holding it together.

"What's going on?" Cavanagh asked, taking his shirt off and wedging it into the slot as instructed.

"We're getting out of here," Bronski told him. He had his own mattress on the floor and was balancing the wire-strung frame on its side against the wall opposite the door.

"What about the Mrachanis?" Cavanagh asked.

"They're the reason we're getting out," Bronski said. Leaving the frame propped against the wall, he squatted down beside the discarded mattress and began tearing carefully through the fabric of the outer enclosure. "You remember Thrr't-rokik quoting the Overclan Prime earlier as saying he was glad they hadn't agreed to an attack on Earth?"

"Yes," Cavanagh said.

"Well, he was wrong," Bronski told him. "Because when Valloittaja was marching us in here, he pretty well confirmed they had conned the Zhirrzh into launching a major attack."