Conquerors' Pride (35 page)

And on the board beside the computer-link jack, two pale-green lights had come on.
Aric looked back at the display, a tingle of eerie unreality clouding over the surge of panic. The Conqueror ships were starting to rotate their edges toward the fueler, the Corvines in sight now as they darted toward the alien ships like angry hawks defending their nest. Deadly silent, deadly serious, deadly precise. Four fighters, one fueler, working now as a single unit.
Copperheads.
Out of the corner of his eye Aric saw a light flick on beneath the display-
And with a suddenness that made him jump, the display shimmered and the Conquerors and planet vanished. "Quinn! What-? Did we mesh out?"
For a half-dozen heartbeats there was no answer. Then, slowly, Quinn's eyes came back to focus. "Yes," he said, his voice sounding strange. "We got the readings we needed and left. No damage."
"Ah," Aric said, feeling oddly out of breath. "What about the Corvines?"
"Should be right with us," Quinn said. The two lights beneath the jack had gone out; reaching over, he pulled out the Mindlink cable. "We're doing a two-minute parallel jump."
"I see," Aric said. He'd seen people try parallel jumps on occasion, never with optimum results. The twin problems of timing and drift... but then, those pilots hadn't had Copperhead synchronization. "Did anyone get a static bomb off?"
"No," Quinn said, his voice a little grim. "There wasn't enough time. That's why we're just doing two minutes."
Aric looked at the display, now functioning as the fueler's main status board. "What happens if they track us?"
Quinn shrugged, pulling the other end of the cable out of the jack hidden under the hair beneath his right ear. "We fight, I guess. Don't worry, though-there's a good chance they won't be able to find us. Two minutes is considered optimum timing for the enemy to get a track on your wake-trail and mesh out after you. Since we'll be meshing in about that same time, they should wind up shooting right past us."
"That assumes they can't track a wake-trail while in stardrive," Aric pointed out. "Or that they won't wait that extra minute and notice that we've meshed in again."
Quinn shook his head. "Doubt it. So far their stardrive seems to work the same way as ours. It's unlikely their tracking system would work any differently."
"As unlikely as their meshing in only two kilometers away from us?"
For a moment Quinn was silent. "You're right," he conceded. He sat there another moment, then picked up the connector cable and reinserted it into the jack behind his ear. "Max, I want an immediate tactical scan as soon as we mesh in," he ordered, plugging in the other end of the cable.
"Yes, Commander."
One of the two green lights beside the jack came on. "Stand ready, El Dorado," Quinn said. "Here we go."
Once again the seconds counted down; and with another shimmer the stars were back. Holding his breath, Aric stared at the display. "I don't see them," he murmured. "The Corvines. Where are they?"
Silence. "Quinn?" Aric demanded. "Where are they?"
"There," Quinn said, relief evident in his voice. "There, and over there. Just had a little drift problem, that's all. They're on their way. Damage... not reading any."
"Great," Aric said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. It was like coming off one of those terrifying amusement-park gravity rides that he'd always hated. The kind Pheylan and Melinda had always tried to drag him onto when they were kids.
Unfortunately, this ride wasn't over yet. "What do we do if the Conquerors show up? Run for it?"
"Immediately," Quinn nodded. "Don't worry, the others all have the contingency rendezvous point. Max, how's the analysis on those ships coming?"
"It's finished, Commander," the computer said. "I'm afraid it's not going to be as useful as you hoped."
"They never are," Quinn said. "Let's hear it."
One of the side displays lit up with a false-color diagram of the two Conqueror ships. "Here are the raw data," Max said. "You'll see that aside from the beginnings of edge-effect dissipation, the infrared pattern is remarkably uniform. This implies either an extremely cool drive mechanism or else a highly efficient heat-redistribution system."
"Hull-based superconductors?" Aric suggested.
"That's one possibility," Max agreed. "Unfortunately, that uncertainty coupled with our lack of data on the hull material itself leaves us with a considerable margin of error for any distance calculation. It will be better than theJutland was able to obtain, though, given the immediacy of these readings."
"Bottom line, Max," Quinn said. "Let's have it."
The false-color images were replaced by a star chart, with a vector marked in red. "I estimate the ships had traveled between twenty-five and seventy light-years," Max said.
Quinn snorted. "Twenty-five to seventy?" he echoed. "Why don't you make it an even zero to one billion while you're at it?"
"I'm sorry, Commander," Max said, sounding genuinely regretful. "Without better data that's the best I can do."
"I know," Quinn sighed. "Forget it."
Aric looked at the chart. Delphi's estimate had been right: there wasn't a single system on or near that line for nearly a hundred light-years. "It has to be a space station," he said. "That's the only way it can make any sense."
"I know," Quinn said. "I know. The problem..." He broke off, waving a hand helplessly at the chart.
Aric nodded, a hard knot of gloom settling into the pit of his stomach. To find a single deep-space station along a line forty-five light-years long... "It can't be done, can it?" he asked quietly.
"No," Quinn said. "There's not a chance in hell. Not if we had every ship in the Commonwealth to help us."
Aric looked at the red line. "So what do we do?"
Quinn looked up at him. "We go home, sir," he said. "There's nothing else we can do."
The control room was suddenly as silent as a tomb. Pheylan's tomb. "Not yet," Aric said. "We can't go yet. We can do two more systems-the others promised they'd help us search that many."
Quinn waved again at the chart. "Fine. Which two do you want?"
Aric shook his head. All those stars. Where even to think about beginning?
"It's over, Mr. Cavanagh," Quinn said into the silence. "We did everything we could. It wasn't enough. It's time to go home."
"You that eager to face trial?" Aric bit out.
"No," Quinn said. "I'm not eager to prepare for war, either. But we'll probably have to do both."
Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean it that way."
For a minute Quinn was silent. "We need to release the others to go back," he said at last. "That was our agreement. But if you want to continue... I guess I'm willing to keep going. We could probably go another month on our own before we had to turn back."
"And where would we look?" Aric countered.
Quinn shrugged slightly. "Wherever you wanted."
Aric turned away from the chart, his mind churning with anger and frustration. But Quinn was right. They literally had no place to start looking. "No," he said. "You're right. There's nothing more we can do." He took a deep breath. "When do we leave?"
"The Corvines will be back here in about four hours if they stick with their current minimal-fuel course," Quinn said. "We'll get the fighters berthed and refueled and then head home. Either to Dorcas or straight on to Edo."
Aric nodded. The plan made sense, of course-they had no reason to hang around here once they'd made the decision to leave. But still... "Maybe we should all get some rest first," he said over his shoulder. "Could be the Conquerors just weren't able to track a tachyon wake-trail this short. They might be waiting for us to mesh out and start after us then."
"Not if we drop a static bomb first," Quinn pointed out.
"We could all still use some rest," Aric insisted. "All of us need it."
He could feel Quinn's gaze on the back of his head. "All right," the other said. "How much time do you want?"
Or in other words, how much time did he need to reconcile himself to abandoning Pheylan to the Conquerors. "Let's make it ten hours from now," Aric said. "That'll give everyone about six hours of sleep."
"Agreed," Quinn said.
Aric took a deep breath. So that was it. He had ten hours in which to pull a miracle out of a hat.
Or to find the courage to do what had to be done. And to say a final good-bye to his brother.
22
"All right," Melinda said, easing off the clamps that had been holding the Conqueror's torso open and dropping them back onto the tray. "That part's done. How are you holding up, Hobson?"
"I'm okay, ma'am," her assistant said from across the makeshift autopsy table. Words aside, he was looking a little green above his breather mask. "We almost done?"
"With this session, yes," Melinda assured him. "I'm going to have to scrounge up some specialized instruments before I can do anything with the cranium. We'll look at the tongue and then take a break."
"Yeah, I heard about that tongue," Hobson said darkly. "That's how that one iced Bremmer and Ranjithan."
"Yes," Melinda nodded, moving to the other end of the table and picking up a probe and clamp. "Open his mouth, will you? Carefully."
Hobson complied. Easing the probe under the tongue, Melinda lifted the tip out into the open and clamped it in place. "Interesting," she murmured, touching the edge.
"What are those things?" Hobson asked, leaning in for a closer look. "Look like little shark teeth."
"They're pieces of bone, I think," Melinda said, wiggling one of the dark-white triangles with her probe. "Fastened directly to the tongue muscle. Definitely sharp."
"How come they don't cut themselves?"
"They probably don't normally protrude quite this far out," Melinda said, picking up a scalpel and making a small incision between two of the bone teeth. "The muscle tissues have likely contracted somewhat over the past forty hours. Ah."
"What?" Hobson asked.
"Blood vessels," Melinda said, easing the incision open. "A fairly major set, right here at the edge."
Peripherally, she saw Hobson glance away. "Major Takara's coming," he said.
Melinda straightened and looked behind her. Takara was coming toward them through the deepening dusk, picking his way carefully around the boxes of equipment and supplies that had been piled beneath the wide rock overhang. "Major," she nodded as he stepped up to the plastic bubble of their makeshift autopsy room. "Anything from the biochem people?"
"Yes," Takara said, "and you can both relax. Turns out the Conquerors' genetic pattern isn't even remotely similar to ours. That apparently means that any viruses or bacteria associated with your subject there aren't going to have the slightest idea what to do with human body chemistry. Shouldn't be able to bother any of the native Dorcas ecosystem, either."
"And vice versa, I suppose?" Melinda asked.
"Right," Takara said, unsealing the bubble's flap door and stepping inside. "So much for anyWar of the Worlds scenarios we might have hoped for. How are you doing, Hobson?"
"I'm holding up, sir," Hobson said. "This isn't exactly my usual specialty, though."
"Consider it part of the exotic life your Peacekeeper recruiter promised you." Takara nodded at the Conqueror corpse on the table. "Looking at the tongue?"
"Yes," Melinda said. "And I think I know how he killed those two men." She touched one of the sharp bone fragments with her probe. "These bone teeth are attached to what seems to be a ridge of erectile tissue just beneath the tongue's surface. Normally, the tissue is soft and pliable, which lets the teeth float loosely. Keeps them from scratching or cutting anything in the inside of the mouth. When the tissue engorges, though, the teeth stiffen into place, turning into a sort of serrated knife along each edge. They might physically interlock, too, which would give the arrangement more structural strength. I'll have to poke around a little more to see if that's the case."
"Well, be careful while you do it," Takara warned. "The autopsy on Bremmer indicated there might have been some kind of poison in that wound. You at a break point here?"
"We could be," Melinda said, glancing past Takara's shoulder at the fading light past the overhang. Evening was coming, and they would have to quit soon anyway. "Do you need me somewhere else?"
"Colonel wants to see you in his office. Could take a while."
"All right," Melinda said, stripping off her gloves and breather mask and dropping them into the prep tray. "Hobson, can you get the body back into storage by yourself?"
"No problem, ma'am."
"And then get cleaned up and report to Lieutenant Gasperi in Command Three," Takara added. "Whenever you're ready, Doctor."
Holloway's "office"-a chair and computer desk in a corner of the tactical-equipment section of the overhang-was buzzing with activity when Melinda and Takara arrived. Holloway himself was standing in front of a map that had been fastened to the rough rock of the wall, holding a discussion with several of his men. Other Peacekeepers were moving back and forth between the desk and the other workstations, dropping off reports and picking up new orders. And off to one side, standing or sitting on the uneven floor, were a half-dozen tired-looking men in camouflage outfits.
The group by the map broke up. "Dr. Cavanagh," Holloway greeted her, stepping back to his desk and sitting down. "Sorry I can't offer you a chair, but we're a little short of furniture here. How's the dissection coming?"
"We've made a start," Melinda told him, stepping up to the desk and giving Holloway a quick once-over. He looked as tired as the men by the other wall. Maybe more so. "I've done a preliminary examination of the exterior and a closer study of the torso area. I need to do the head and the limbs, and then we'll move on to microscopic tissue studies."
"I see." Holloway picked up a small plastic sample box from the scattered electronic equipment and stacks of paper cluttering the desk and handed it to her. "Take a look. Tell me what you think."
Melinda took the box and looked through the lid. Inside, nestled in the palm of a camouflaged glove, was a thin, dark-brown disk, slightly curled at the edges. "It looks like a slice of sausage," she said. "Where did it come from?"
Holloway gestured to the camouflaged men. "Sergeant Janovetz?"
"We found it just north of the settlement," a raw-boned man near the middle of the group said. "In a little cubbyhole built into a sort of white pyramid thing the Conquerors have got set up on Overview Ridge."
Melinda frowned at Holloway. It had been barely two days since the Conquerors had invaded. "They're moving equipment in already?"
"They moved these in, anyway," Holloway said. "There appear to be four of them: one each north, south, east, and west of the settlement."