Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Legacy

"Except that if those aircraft are Zhirrzh, I won't have time to get you out," Pheylan pointed out. "We're going to need you to work out the details of that sonic hull-cracking technique Williams came up with. Here we go."

Carefully, he cut through the final cable. Just as carefully, he lifted the meter-long silver cylinder out of the interlock chamber. "Still with me?" he asked, balancing the cylinder on the floor as he snagged the carrying case he'd rigged out of a pair of backpacks.

"I'm here," Max's voice came from the speaker in the cylinder. "Or at least most of me."

"Sorry," Pheylan apologized. "I wish I could bring your peripherals and libraries along, but I can't handle all that alone. Next time we do this, I'll bring along a couple of pack animals."

"I would hope so," Max said. "Incidentally, I'm not nearly as fragile as you seem to think. My casing and component placement have been designed to withstand reasonably severe mistreatment."

"Glad to hear it," Pheylan said, stuffing the cylinder into the carrying case and fastening it securely in place. "Let's hope we don't wind up pushing the design specs."

Hoisting the cylinder onto his back, he settled the straps in place and picked up his own survival pack. Heavy and awkward—he hoped he wouldn't have to walk all the way to the Peacekeeper base. "Let's make tracks."

Max had set them down on a small knoll that jutted up through the tree-covered landscape around it. The knoll itself was free of both trees and large bushes, but there was a fair amount of ankle-high vegetation underfoot consisting of interlocking vines that threatened to tangle his feet with each step. Pheylan had picked his way through perhaps thirty meters of the stuff and was nearing the edge of the knoll when he heard the distant sound. "Max?"

"Approaching air vehicle," the computer said. "Only one, I believe, though with only my internal sensors I can't be certain."

"Never mind how many," Pheylan said, throwing a quick look around the sky as he picked up his pace. Nothing visible yet. "Is it ours or theirs?"

"I can't tell," Max said. "But from the drive pitch I'd say it's more likely a space vehicle than an aircraft."

Pheylan swore under his breath, kicking into a flat-out run toward the edge of the knoll. The only people in this system who had spacecraft to spare for a rescue search were the Zhirrzh. "What direction is it coming from?" he asked, scanning the sky again. A few more steps and he'd be to the edge of the knoll and the partial cover of the trees.

And then, suddenly, one of the vines caught his ankle, pitching him forward toward the ground. He threw out his arms, his hands hitting the ground—

And with a crash and flurry of tearing leaves and vines they went straight through the layer of interlocked vegetation and into empty space.

Two meters sooner than he'd expected to, he'd found the edge of the knoll.

The next few seconds were a disoriented tangle of movement and pain as he rolled and tumbled down the slope, slamming into rocks and stiff plant stalks with the repetitive impact of Max's cylinder pounding against his back. He fought unsuccessfully for balance, hands scrabbling for a grip on the plants as they rushed past, legs flailing as they tried for enough friction to at least slow down his mad slide. Something hit his head hard enough for him to see stars—

He awoke slowly, vaguely aware that someone was softly calling his name. "Commander Cavanagh? Commander Cavanagh?"

"I'm here, Max," he said, his voice sounding distant and slurred in his ears. His left leg was throbbing strangely; absently, he reached down to rub it.

And gasped in pain, coming fully awake in an instant as a stab of agony ripped through the leg.

"Keep your voice down, please," Max said. "Is it broken?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Pheylan managed, clenching his teeth hard together. Gasping in pain was undignified enough without adding flat-out screaming to it.

He paused, listening, the throbbing in his leg abruptly pushed into the background of his thoughts.

The sound of the incoming aircraft, which had sparked his disastrous rush toward cover, had stopped.

"Are they here?" he whispered.

"Yes," Max confirmed. "I've counted five separate voices; there may be more."

Pheylan grimaced. "Not human voices."

"No."

Carefully, Pheylan turned his torso and head to look above him. He was about two thirds of the way down the slope, wrapped around the tree trunk that had probably been responsible for breaking his leg. Behind him the false ground cover hung a couple of meters off the end of the knoll, giving him partial concealment from the view of anyone up there. Aside from that, though, he was about as exposed as he could possibly be.

"Can you move at all?" Max asked. "Two meters downslope is a large bush that would provide you with concealment."

Gingerly, Pheylan tried it. He got about five centimeters before conceding defeat. "I can't do it," he panted, wiping at the sweat dripping into his eyes. "The pain's too much."

"Can you tell how bad the break is?"

"No," Pheylan said. "Bad enough."

For a minute Max was silent. Pheylan could hear the voices himself now, chattering quietly away above him on the knoll.

And, no, they weren't human.

"I don't think you have any choice, Commander," Max said at last. "Whatever the Zhirrzh do here, the probability is high that the Peacekeepers will assume all survivors have been captured and won't come themselves to search. Even if you could get to your survival pack, the medical pack would be of limited help with a broken leg."

Pheylan hadn't even missed the survival pack yet. He looked around, but wherever it had ended up, it was out of his immediate sight. "You're suggesting I surrender."

"I see no other alternatives. I'm sorry."

Pheylan sighed. So much for his big grandstand scheme to come here and help his sister. And to wind up a Zhirrzh prisoner again on top of it. If he lived through this, he was never going to live it down. "I'm sorry, too, Max," he said.

He took a deep breath. "Hey!" he shouted. "Down here!"

Parlimin VanDiver was halfway through his third glass of claretee when the word finally came through. "Ah," Paallikko said, looking at the terminal at his side. "At last. Yes, Parlimin VanDiver, Lord Cavanagh and Liaison Bronski were indeed here on Mra. Unfortunately, that is no longer true. It appears they both left five hours ago for Mra-mig."

VanDiver swallowed a curse. That figured. Once again, regular as nuclear clockwork, Cavanagh had found a way to waste some of his precious time. "Where on Mra-mig were they going?"

"The information does not say," Paallikko said, his voice heavy with regret and an echo of VanDiver's own irritation. At least he understood that a NorCoord Parlimin didn't have this kind of time to squander. "We only know their destination from the fact that the servicer who refueled their spacecraft happened to overhear them discussing it."

VanDiver tapped at his glass with a fingernail. "What about a skitter? Can we send a message ahead asking them to hold him?"

"The scheduled message skitter has already left," Paallikko said. "I could of course send a diplomatic skitter, but I'm afraid it would be of only limited benefit. Liaison Bronski's ship is courier-class, which means the skitter would still arrive at Mra-mig behind him."

"That figures," VanDiver growled. A courier-class ship: twice as fast as a normal stardrive, at five times the cost. Undoubtedly at government expense, too. Just one more irritation, plus one more charge to add to the mental list he was preparing for the prosecutor general.

"Shall I order your ship to be refueled?" Paallikko asked. "A courtesy, of course, with no cost to the NorCoord Parliament."