Melinda pressed closer to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut, cringing as the multiple thunderclaps of explosions pounded against her ears and head. Through the noise she could faintly hear shouts; through her closed eyelids she could see flickers and flashes of brilliant light—

And then there was a violent crash that picked her up and slammed her to the ground again.

And silence.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes and lifted her head a few centimeters. Sprawled on the ground in her line of sight were the unmoving forms of the nearest Conquerors, their jumpsuits spattered with very humanlike red blood. Beyond them the crumpled form of the copter lay canted and burning against the ground perhaps thirty meters behind their wrecked aircar. Crane and Bremmer, along with the three civilians, were making their way across the open land toward the copter. "Is it over?" she asked, not realizing until she said it how inane the question probably sounded.

But if Holloway agreed with that assessment, he didn't say so. "For the moment," he said. "No, stay put—we're holding backstop position. You hurt?"

"Just a little shaken," she said, coughing on the words. The air was thick with acrid smoke from the explosions and fire, burning her nose and lungs. "What happens now?"

"If they're all dead, we head for the canyon," Holloway told her. "They might have backup on the way; and if they didn't before, they probably do now."

Melinda looked over at the pressure bandage on Wei's sprained ankle. "It's going to be a long walk."

"The alternatives aren't any more pleasant," Holloway countered. "Keep quiet, and watch."

Across the clearing the Peacekeepers and civilians had reached the downed Conqueror copter. Much of the smoke had blown away now, and Melinda could see dozens of what looked like thin cracks crisscrossing the milky-white surface. One of the Peacekeepers—the pilot Bremmer, Melinda tentatively identified him—fired a short burst at the side of the craft, blowing the door off. "Take it careful," Holloway muttered under his breath. "Slow and careful." Lowering his assault gun slightly, Bremmer stepped to the hatchway and eased his head in for a look inside—

And with a shout jumped back away from the copter as a Conqueror staggered out.

Melinda gasped. But even as the Conqueror grabbed the edge of the doorway and pulled himself upright, Bremmer took a step forward and jabbed the muzzle of his assault gun hard into the alien's upper torso. The Conqueror might have gasped—Melinda couldn't tell for sure—and staggered backward. One of the civilians jumped in behind him, bringing his weapon over the alien's head into a choke hold against his neck. The Conqueror reached up to the gun, but for all his obvious straining was unable to budge it.

"Watch it," Holloway muttered. "Real careful. Get him on the ground before you search him." Across the way Bremmer handed his weapon to Crane and stepped up to the alien—

And in that instant the Conqueror struck.

Melinda didn't see clearly what happened, only that Bremmer abruptly jerked back and to the side, his neck erupting into a spray of blood as he fell to the ground.

"Get away from him!" Holloway shouted, snapping up his assault gun.

But too late. Even as someone screamed—even as Crane dropped the second weapon that was encumbering him—the Conqueror twisted his head to the side beneath the pressure against his neck... and this time Melinda had a horrifyingly clear view of the attack. From the alien's mouth something knifelike lanced out, slicing cleanly through the neck of the man behind him. There was another scream, this one gurgling horribly, as he collapsed into a heap. The Conqueror grabbed for the assault gun now sliding loosely down his torso—

And then Crane opened fire, and the Conqueror seemed to explode into fragments and a spray of blood.

Melinda stared at the scene, her whole body shaking violently, her stomach twisting and sick as it hadn't been since her first year of medical school. She'd seen the documentaries on the wars the Peacekeepers had been involved in over the past thirty-seven years—the wars and the police actions and the pacifications. But neither that nor her medical training had prepared her for this. This was dangerous, bloody, and real.

And in the deepest core of her being she understood, perhaps for the first time, that she was truly and genuinely in the middle of a war.

She took a shuddering breath. Yes, she was in a war. But she was also a doctor in a war, with all the responsibilities that went along with that. Including her promise to Holloway. "I'm going over there," she said, standing up. "There might be something I can do."

"Sure," Holloway said, his voice angry and bitter and not believing for a second that there was any hope at all for the two men. "Wei, stay here. Keep a sharp eye."

They made it across the scarred ground without incident. To discover that there had indeed been no urgent need for the trip.

"Dead?" Holloway asked.

Melinda nodded, standing up again. Her heart was still pounding, but at least her stomach was settling down a little. The trick was to try to think of this as clinically as possible. To see them as medical subjects, not as murdered men. "Slashed carotid arteries," she said. "Both of them." She looked at Crane. "Did you see what happened?"

He shook his head. "Happened too fast. Some kind of weapon—came out of his mouth—"

"Hold it," Holloway cut him off, his eyes gazing hard at nothing in particular.

Melinda frowned. And then she heard it too: an all-too-familiar humming sound—

"Cover!" Holloway barked, grabbing her arm and pulling hard. Yanked off balance, Melinda fell to the ground, rolling partway over to bump her shoulder into the side of the downed copter. Holloway threw himself protectively on top of her as the others hit the scorched ground beside them.

And with an angry blast of hurricane wind three more Conqueror copters shot past overhead.

From the trees came the stutter-bark of an assault gun as Wei opened fire. One of the copters twisted to the side, shivering under the barrage as multiple explosions scattered bits of white from its underside. Above her Melinda could hear Holloway shouting something, his weight shifting and his elbow digging painfully into her ribs as he swung up his assault gun. All three copters were firing now, brilliant flickering bursts of laser fire tracking toward Wei's position in the trees. Melinda shrank back against the hot side of the downed copter as, all around her, Holloway and the others also began firing. One of the copters swung back around toward this new threat, ignoring the explosive shells raking across its side, its lasers lancing across the ground toward them. Melinda half closed her eyes, wondering how it would feel to die—

And with a flash of blue-white fire, the side of the copter blew out. Twisting over like a wounded animal, it plunged to a shattering impact on the ground. The other two copters abandoned their attack on Wei, swinging around just as twin blurs of black and white screamed past overhead.

The two Corvines had arrived.

The copters swung around again, their lasers trying to track the fighters. But the Corvines had already cut into impossibly tight turns and were coming back around again in some kind of double flanking maneuver. The copters fired, missed, fired again—

And disintegrated together in twin bursts of flame as the Corvines roared past.

The fragments hit the ground, the thunder of the explosions faded away, and then there was silence except for the ringing in Melinda's ears. "You all right?" Holloway asked, his voice sounding faint and distant despite the fact that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

"You keep asking me that," she chided, her own voice sounding no clearer than his did. Considering all her eardrums had been through, she was probably lucky she could hear anything at all. "What now?"