"You too."

Holloway motioned, and Crane keyed off the transmitter. "Does he mean it?"

"Yes," Melinda said. So that was it. She was here, and she was in for the duration. "Shouldn't we be getting out of here ourselves?"

"Go ahead," Holloway said, his attention on the displays again. "I want to wait and see what size force we're up against. Get on any of the aircars out there that has room for you."

"All right." Melinda turned and started for the door. She was nearly there when the console pinged a third time—

"Colonel!" Crane yelped.

Melinda spun back around. "What?"

"They're right on top of us," Holloway gritted, slapping Crane's shoulder and racing toward Melinda. "This is Holloway," he barked into his comm. "Full alert—the bogies have meshed at atmosphere level—five hundred klicks up. All personnel and vehicles, get out of the settlement immediately."

The words were barely out of his mouth when a violent thunderclap rocked the building. Melinda fought for balance, dimly aware that Crane was shouting something through the ringing in her ears.

And then Holloway was beside her, steadying her with a firm grip on her upper arm. "What happened?" she shouted.

"They hit the main transmitter," he shouted back, turning her back toward the door again. "Laser blast. Let's go."

They ran outside, Crane right behind them. Melinda looked up—"Colonel!" she gasped, jerking back against him. Overhead a dozen air vehicles were hovering all around them—

"What are you doing?" he demanded, grabbing her arm again and hauling her bodily away from the complex. "Those are ours. Come on."

She let him lead her toward the last aircar still waiting on the ground, feeling a hot flush of mortification rush across her face as she watched the vehicles overhead swing out of their vertical ascents and head east. A second later the embarrassment was forgotten as a brilliant flash lit up the hills to the west. "Another shot," Holloway shouted, his grip on her arm tightening. "Brace yourself—"

The thunderclap seemed quieter this time; but to her surprise the ground tilted wildly beneath her as the sound seemed to drive straight through her head. She fought for balance, felt a second hand on her other arm—

And then, suddenly, she was being pulled up a short ramp into a low-ceilinged metal compartment. "Sit down," Holloway ordered, pushing her down into one of a pair of empty seats just behind the cockpit area and dropping into the other one himself. "Bremmer—go!"

The aircar lurched upward and swung around. Her head still throbbing, Melinda fumbled with the unfamiliar military-style restraints, getting them fastened just as the pilot opened the throttle and sent them roaring eastward.

"You all right?" Holloway asked.

"Fine," Melinda said, blinking her eyes a couple of times and stretching her jaw experimentally. She wasn't quite fine, not yet, but she was definitely headed that direction. "What happened? Sonic shock?"

"Probably." Holloway took her face in his hands, turning it toward him and peering into her eyes. "Your pupils look okay," he said, letting go again. "Must have just shaken up your inner ear a little."

"Yes," she agreed, looking around with some surprise. From the size of the aircar she'd expected it to be a passenger design, with room for forty or fifty people. But aside from the pilot and copilot, the cabin was equipped with only six other seats. Crane was in one; the remaining three held grim-faced men in civilian clothing.

"It's a cargo carrier," Holloway explained, ducking his head slightly to look past the pilot's shoulder at the foothills rolling past beneath them. "Bremmer, you picking up any bogies yet?"

"No, sir," the pilot said. "But the range on this thing isn't very good. Shall I call the array at the canyon?"

"You wouldn't get through," Holloway said. "Cash to crinkles that second shot took out the backup transmitter. Just keep her low and fast."

The minutes crept by. Melinda leaned close to Holloway, trying to get as good a view as she could out the cockpit canopy, the only windows on the aircar. The plains and low hills began to give way to taller mountains, some covered with squat, rubbery-looking trees, others craggy and bare except for occasional patches of ground cover. The aircar hugged the ground, staying no more than a few meters above treetop level, dipping and rising with the terrain. As they ducked over some of the higher passes, she could see snow-covered peaks in the distance, and she wondered how high up in those mountains Holloway's canyon was situated. If they were going to have to deal with frostbite and hypothermia—

"We're picking up something, Colonel," the copilot said suddenly. "Coming into detection range behind us—"

He was cut off by a brilliant flash to their right. Reflexively, Melinda twisted her head away, just in time to catch Holloway's shoulder with her forehead as the aircar lurched to the side. She rocked back again as the pilot straightened out; and then the crash webbing whipped out, wrapping protectively around her and pinning her in place. "How bad?" Holloway shouted over the suddenly shrill engine noise.

"Bad," the pilot shouted back. "Starboard stub's gone—airfoils inoperative. We're going down."

Melinda set her teeth together to protect them, straining against the grip of the crash webbing to look ahead out the canopy. The wooded hills, still shooting past underneath, were rising toward them at an alarming pace. An unusually tall tree suddenly appeared in front of them, twisting to the side at the last second as the pilot managed to veer around it. They dropped to treetop level, and the whine of the engine was drowned out by the cacophony of branches scraping across the underside of the aircar. Farther down, and suddenly Melinda was being thrown back and forth inside the webbing as the aircar twisted furiously between the trees like a crazed snake. She squinted her eyes half-shut against the shaking as they fell, not wanting to watch but unable to look away. The screech of branches against metal was all around them now, a banshee scream of imminent death—

And with a horrendous crash, they hit.

"You all right?" Holloway asked.

Melinda blinked her eyes open. The aircar was down, the whine of the engines had stopped, and aside from an unpleasant tingle where her skin was pressed tightly against the crash webbing, she seemed to be unhurt. "Yes," she said. "How long was I out?"

"Minute or so," Holloway said. He'd already freed himself from his webbing; forcing a hand through the mesh at her side, he triggered her release. "We've got to make tracks," he said as the webbing retracted. "There's a camo suit under your seat. Get it out and put it on."

Melinda obeyed, pulling out the heavy package and unfolding it. It consisted of a hooded serape and a thick belt connected together by a slender tube. Sliding forward in her seat, she got the belt on and pulled the serape over her head. The material was heavy and thick, with an odd texture to it.

"Ever fired an Oberon assault gun?"

"I've shot rifles a few times," Melinda said, getting shakily to her feet and looking around. The last of the other passengers, also wearing a camo serape, was just easing past the torn and twisted metal where the door had been, a thick and thoroughly nasty-looking double-barreled military rifle clutched in his hand. Crane was standing next to the gash, pulling two more of the assault guns from an open storage rack. "It was nothing like that, though."

"Then this isn't the time to learn," Holloway decided, accepting one of the assault guns from Crane and ushering Melinda toward the exit. "First-aid kit's under the pilot seat—grab it. We've got to get to cover before a follow-up ship gets here."

The crash had gouged a surprisingly wide gash through the surrounding landscape, probably much of the damage caused by trees knocking each other down as the aircar plowed its way through. Ahead Melinda could see the three civilians picking their way carefully across the rubble toward the nearest edge of standing timber, their serapes rippling in the breeze. The pilot and copilot were angling to either side of the civilians' direction, the copilot limping heavily.