Acorna’s Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Oh, just look,” Acorna cried, pointing at one of the auxiliary screens, aimed at where they had just been. “The lead Khleevi ships are breaking up.”

  “NO!” Calum’s negative shout had more than a tinge of fear in it. “They’re breaking OFF.”

  As Gill turned back to where the mercenaries were pounding the V formation of the Khleevi, it seemed that the three lead ships were disassembling themselves into smaller separate units. Far too many smaller units.

  They watched, horrified, as the little pinnaces, like minnows against sharks, followed, their forward lasers punching at the shark tails…in three cases making direct hits. But only three instances…and luck had to have been on their side because there were far too many of the smaller Khleevi ships heading directly toward Rushima.

  One of Ikwaskwan’s dreadnoughts engulfed a Khleevi ship in such a holocaust that there were only a few units left to peel off the mother ship, like dry seeds falling out of a pod. But they made no attempt to correct their downward direction.

  “Dead!”

  The battle cruisers took out three more Khleevi mother ships, and sent their fighters after the few that escaped the devastating firepower of the cruisers. The destroyers worked at the lowest level of the V of Khleevi, but the instant the mother ships were attacked, the smaller units detached.

  “There’re thousands of them,” Acorna cried. “Oh, how will we ever destroy them all?”

  “We’ll give it a mighty big try, Acorna acushla,” Gill said. “What’s the state of our weapon supply, Cal?”

  “We’d do better to try launching singly, bringing down a small ship with each missile, than any more broadsides,” Cal said.

  “I think…” Acorna added her opinion, “…that we ought to go for the mother ships. I know they’re now a much smaller target, but if we kill all of them, the Khleevi will be forced to land on Rushima, and they’ll be sitting targets.”

  “Good thinking, Acorna,” Gill said, giving her a grin over his shoulder as he maneuvered the Acadecki to bracket one of the now-spindly-looking mother ships in his launch sights.

  They were so oddly shaped they didn’t even appear to be dangerous, though the ovoid upper structure was clearly armed, to judge by the laser beams and lance missiles it was throwing at any target in range. From the upper ovoid a long stem depended, the stem on which the smaller units had been attached, making the Khleevi ships seem so much bigger than they actually were.

  The dreadnought immolated one of the rear Khleevi in a ball of fire and slowly began to swing round to target a second. One of the battle cruisers took a bad hit and swerved out of range, while its fighter ships returned to defend it.

  “That’s two of the nine gone,” crowed Rafik, waving his fists about.

  “No, three,” Gill corrected him, pointing to one that was no longer firing.

  “Yes, but how many dozens of the smaller ones have gotten completely away?” Acorna asked.

  “Let’s harry a few to their deaths,” Gill said, and altered course once more, bearing down on a covey of them.

  “We’re down to laser fire,” Cal said.

  “Misbegotten son of a syphilitic camel driver,” Rafik said, and swore on. “If you’d listened to Pal in the first place, we’d’ve been able to go for one of the mother ships instead of having to go after the small fry.”

  “Let’s fight them,” Gill said, “not each other. Ah, got one.”

  Which he did, but the small ships seem to explode into even smaller divisions.

  “How long can they keep separating?” Gill complained in exasperation.

  Fighters from the battle cruisers and the pinnaces, which had survived against incredible odds, began shooting the new lots like so many swallows in a seasonal pilgrimage. However, the swallows had barbs in their tails, and one after another the three pinnaces following their primary targets were hit.

  “Sowing space mines?” Gill asked rhetorically. Some pods had escaped each of the pinnaces. “We better get as many survivors as we can.”

  The brilliantly colored Linyaari ship and the Uhuru had had much the same idea and collected the pods, which attached themselves to their rescuers’ hulls with tractor beams. But that meant the loss of any high-speed maneuvering capabilities for the rescuers.

  “Let’s get this lot back to the Haven,” Gill said, pointing to the bulk of the Starfarer ship just visible at the edge of Rushima’s primary moon. The small one that rushed around in orbit beyond the bigger one wouldn’t have hidden a Khleevi parasite.

  By the time the Acadecki, the Uhuru, and the Linyaari had brought the pods safely back to the Haven, Captain Andreziana had received orders from Ikwaskwan to come out of hiding and get the last three ovoid mother ships. The other six had been accounted for and were destroyed.

  “All Khleevi are now on the planet, or about to land. We can move in now with kinetic energy weapons and smash them,” Ikwaskwan said, his voice vibrant with triumph. “Pick on our clients, will you, you parasitical, piratical, putrefied parcels of puking pus-filled perverts. You won’t be back in this part of space again, I can tell you! We’ll pick you off like nits from a nanny.”

  Rafik listened to Ikwaskwan’s harangue with the air of one master of the art of invective listening to another.

  “But there are now so many of them down there,” Acorna said.

  “Thousands.” Ikwaskwan grinned. “It could be expensive…lucky our clients are rich.”

  The Haven, with them on the hangar deck, moved out from behind the moon and, one by one, turned her big lasers on the ovoid stems that were attempting to find refuge behind the moon from the dreadnoughts and battle cruisers chasing them.

  Amid the cheers as the last mother ship blew up, Markel said with great satisfaction and in anticipation of what was to come next—

  “Well, it’s up to Dr. Hoa now, isn’t it?”

  He became the center of everyone’s attention.

  “Well, isn’t it?” he asked in a slightly speculative tone.

  “Look,” Ed Minkus said patiently for perhaps the twentieth time, “we aren’t the invaders you were warned about. There are aliens—real aliens—heading for Rushima. And they’re nasty bastards. They’ll torture and kill every last one of you and turn this planet into a wasteland. We were sent to get you off-planet before the fighting starts. We’re the good guys, damn it!”

  “Sure,” One-One said. “Sure you are. That’s why you was wreckin’ my cabin. You all seen the damage they done, didn’t you, fellers?”

  There was a general murmur of agreement, broken only by one dissenting voice that said he personally had seen One-One do worse than that to the bar at Crip’s Crossing more than once.

  One-One frowned the dissenter down. “Caught ’em in the act, din’t I? And you ain’t never seen me toss me own good stock of furs in the mud, have you, Quashie?”

  Over the hours while Des and Ed had been held prisoner, there had been a steady trickle of other settlers who’d remained behind, coming in twos and threes in response to a message put out by One-One on some incredibly primitive homemade broadcasting device that seemed to operate on quartz crystals, wire coils, and curses. The gist of his message seemed to be that the bastards who’d messed over Rushima’s weather had finally made the mistake of coming down to mess them all over in person; he’d caught two that they could use for hostages or execute depending on how things went, and everybody within range should come to his cabin as soon as they could get there, and bring their weapons.

  The motley crowd that now filled the cabin inspired Ed with no very sanguine hopes as to his and Des’s future. There were too many of them, and the cabin’s tiny windows let in too little light, for him to see them all clearly, but he was just as glad of that. The faint light from the windows showed lean, weary-looking men and a few women, dressed in limp rags or stiff, awkwardly tanned leather. Their skin and clothes were crusted with engrained grime, their eyes glittered with the dangerous light of people who’d been pus
hed too far and isolated too long, and, collectively, they stank of old sweat and stale liquor. And the weapons they had collected inspired him with no more confidence. There were a few fairly up-to-date laser pulsers and blasters, but more common were edged weapons that looked to have been improvised out of farming equipment and whatever could be found for handles—sharp blades, things with rows of pointed hooks, a kitchen cleaver. There were even a few ancient projectile weapons that looked as if they belonged in a museum.

  “Individualists” was in Ed’s private opinion an overly polite name for the Rushimese who’d chosen to settle the backcountry and stay there in the threat of an invasion by overwhelming forces. Several more appropriate terms came to his mind, including, “nuts,” “wackos,” and “psychotic bastards.” But he was careful, considering his company, to keep those opinions strictly private. One of the first arrivals had been carrying a long rope with which he bound Des and Ed together, seated back-to-back on the floor. He’d cut off the unused length of rope and coiled it again. Whenever the settlers discussed what to do with their prisoners, this man’s lean, grimy fingers began stroking the coil of rope, and Ed watched it with horrified fascination.

  From One-One’s broadcast and subsequent conversations, Ed and Des had learned how the land and huts they’d overflown had come to be in such poor condition and why the settlers were so hostile to strangers now. They’d likely have been received with suspicion even if they hadn’t been caught wrecking the cabin in search of valuables to loot. Ed had to admit that little fact did rob their story of some credibility…but damn it, he was actually telling the truth, and it was in these people’s interest to listen to him; they’d all be in deep kimchee if they didn’t untie him and Des and let them take them off-planet.

  Ed kept trying to convince them of that, though with less and less hope of doing it as the hours wore on. The changing quality of the dim light warned him that much precious time had already passed…how much he didn’t know; One-One had relieved him and Des of their chronometers and other equipment as soon as someone showed up to hold the blaster on them while he patted them down for weapons.

  Des was unable to join in the argument for their lives, having exploded in such bursts of fury and blasphemy when first tied up that One-One had told the man with the rope to gag him. All Des could do now was rock back and forth and breathe stertorously through his nose to express his fury and indignation. Ed decided to make one more try at convincing with the colonists.

  “Look,” he said reasonably, “I can understand why you wouldn’t trust us on our unsupported word; you have suffered terribly from strangers. But if you’d just let me use our ship’s com system, I could bring other people who’d tell you the same thing.”

  One-One cackled. “Right, sonny, you could bring some more of your thieving buddies down on us, couldn’t you! Don’t waste your breath; I sent somebody to shut down the com units hours ago. And there’s three guys guardin’ the ship, so don’t get no ideas about that bein’ your ticket home, neither! Reckon we c’n use it to ambush yer buddies when they do show up.”

  “Hours…What time is it?” Ed demanded. “For God’s sake, just tell me how long we’ve been here already?”

  One-One squinted at Des’s shiny chronometer, which hung awkwardly off his skinny wrist.

  “Cain’t read these little bitty numbers so good as I used to, sonny. What you reckon it says, Quashie?”

  Quashie scowled. “Funny numbers,” he said finally. “Don’t look like no clock I ever seen. Change too fast, too. What’s that one mean, the one keeps getting bigger? Look, it was ten a while ago, now it’s up to twenty-five…twenty-six….”

  Sweat beaded on Ed’s forehead and rolled down his face in an agonizingly tortuous, ticklish path. He tasted the salt on his dry lips.

  “Is that number in a little blue square at the bottom right hand of the chronometer face?”

  “Was blue,” Quashie said. “Now it’s red.”

  Ed sagged against the ropes that held him more or less upright and closed his eyes.

  “I’m tired of hearing all your arguing,” One-One told him. “You shut your trap now, or we’ll shut it for you like we done the other ’un.”

  “It’s okay,” Ed said tiredly. “There’s no hurry now. We’re all dead, we just don’t know it yet.”

  The chronometer had been set to display the time left before Admiral Ikwaskwan’s deadline for clearing the planet. The changeover from blue to red meant the time had elapsed and the chronometer was now measuring the time since the deadline had passed.

  Ed didn’t know what Ikwaskwan expected to happen now, but he was fairly sure that the Admiral wouldn’t change or delay his plans for the sake of two new recruits and one shuttle—and it must have been something fairly disastrous he had in mind; otherwise, their employers wouldn’t have been so insistent about the necessity to evacuate all Rushimese from the planet before the deadline.

  As if to corroborate his statement, a distant blast rumbled through the sky. Several of the Rushimese startled nervously; two of them blocked the tiny window, trying to peer out of it.

  “More of their dirty tricks,” one of them said. “Thunderstorm, I reckon. That could of been a lightning strike on Crip’s Crossing. Any more rain, and that cliff’s gonna come down on this-here cabin, One-One.”

  “Held up all right so far, din’t it?” One-One retorted, but his eyes slid uneasily upward.

  “Naah, that ain’t lightning,” the man called Quashie argued. “More like the dam upcreek of Crip’s busting. I heerd the big one down to the reservoir go. Sounded just like that there.”

  Three more booms and a series of sharp cracks canceled the argument. The last noise was so close to the cabin that Ed shut his eyes and tried to contract his body, as if that would protect him from aerial attack.

  “Hellfire,” somebody at the window shouted, “they done got the shuttle!”

  “Get my Pyaka outa there!” screamed a gray-faced woman.

  “Winjy,” said Quashie, putting an arm around her shoulders, “ain’t nothing left to get nobody out of. I’m dreadful sorry, but we be mournin’ Pyaka and them other two fellas. They gone, Winjy.”

  Now we are really dead, Ed thought, and if he thought he’d known despair before, he knew the difference now. There’d been no reasonable hope that these maniacs would untie him and Des and give them a chance to reach the shuttle…but as long as it existed, the hope of escape had been there, the chance in a million that they would somehow be able to get out of this crazy place and back to the narrow berth on a Red Bracelet ship which now, in retrospect, seemed a haven of comfort and safety.

  So deep was his despair, he paid no attention to the low-voiced conversation going on between One-One, Quashie, and one or two other settlers who seemed to be leaders of the group. Their words were almost drowned out anyway by the woman Winjy’s hopeless sobbing and by the blasts and roars of distant battle…not all of them all that distant, either!

  Ed leaned against the cabin wall, eyes closed in despair, and ignored his surroundings until something hard poked him in the ribs, and One-One gruffly demanded to know what he thought.

  “About what?” He didn’t even bother to open his eyes.

  “About settin’ you loose, peanut-head, what you think we been talkin’ about here?” A second, harder dig inspired Ed to look at the old guy. “Reckon if these here invaders wanted to blow up your shuttle, them and you might not be on the same side after all. And they’s ship looks different from yours, too. Different from anything I ever seen before, truth.”

  “Christ on a crutch!” somebody yelled. “They is aliens! Some kinder giant bugs!”

  Des grunted and thumped from side to side, shaking Ed with each excited movement. “Mmmp? Mmmb nnn mmmph!” he grunted emphatically.

  “’Course, you’re still damned looters, and we’ll probably still hang you after we done fought off these here fellas, but if’n you’ll give your parole while the fight lasts, well…rec
kon we c’n use ever able-bodied person we got here.”

  Ed couldn’t swear loyalty fast enough.

  “Your buddy, too?” One-One regarded Des critically.

  “Mmmm-mmmp,” Des told him.

  “Good enough…you ain’t got nowhere to run to, anyways. Might wanta keep that in mind.” One-One sliced through Des’s gag with a casual swipe of his sharp tanning knife, then cut the ropes binding both men with two more slashes.

  “Hey,” the man with the rope protested, “that’s me good rope you wastin’!”

  “Ain’t got time to fool with knots,” One-One said. “Cover the back winder, willya?”

  He handed a blaster to Des and pointed out that he still had the other blaster, and that there’d be someone watching their backs, in case they had any cute ideas.

  Des shook off the ropes and gag like feathers and charged for the back end of the cabin as if he’d been doing sitting-up exercises instead of sitting tied up in a corner for hours. Ed moved more slowly, feeling the pins and needles of returning circulation in his extremities and the cramping sensation of muscles protesting their long confinement.

  “Pick it up, Ed me boy!” Des shouted. Somebody handed him a wicked-looking iron pole with a row of sharp points roughly welded to its far end.

  “A lot of good that does,” Ed protested. “Where’s our other blaster?”

  One-One grinned and shook his head. “Ain’t got enough distance weapons to waste two on one winder, me boy. Your buddy’ll try an’ hold ’em off. Any of ’em gets in close, you use this best way you can, got it?”

  When Ed reached Des, his partner was wearing a maniacal grin intensified by the foam that had flecked his lips while he was gagged and the blood where One-One’s pointed knife had cut his cheek as well as the gag. His chin was blue with an incipient beard and, all in all, he looked as desperate and uncivilized as the worst of the settlers in the cabin.